Orð og tunga - 01.06.2016, Page 125

Marie Novotná: Adaptation of foreign words into Czech 115
tury, the spoken language underwent changes which have prevailed
until today in the colloquial (“Common”) language variety, as op-
posed to Standard Czech. The two varieties diff er signifi cantly with
respect to morphology and syntax. Only Standard Czech is taught in
schools, and considerable emphasis is put on correct spelling. From
this point of view, the tradition of constant and strict codifying – also
evident in the latest proposal on the treatment of Old Norse names
(Novotná & Starý 2014) – might be understood.
In the 19th century, new grammars and a dictionary were published
along with the fi rst original writings and the fi rst translations into
Czech. New words were created, most notably in the fi eld of scien-
tifi c terminologies. Czech was granted equal status to German, which
resulted in Czech being widely introduced in the high schools and in
the Czech part of Prague University.
The last third of the 19th century was dominated by purists att empt-
ing to rid the language of real or putative foreignisms, with limited im-
pact (Meyerstein 1973:44). Anti-German purism was embodied in hand-
books of correct Czech usage, mainly the Brus jazyka českého [Sharpener
of the Czech Tongue], a predecessor of Pravidla českého pravopisu = Rules
of Czech Spelling (see below) (Nestupný & Nekvapil 2006:66).
2.2.4 The 20th century
The fi rst Rules of Czech Spelling, ed. by Gebauer et al. in 1902, were
conservative, referring to the 19th and 18th century literature. Com-
mon speakers generally refused to apply these spelling and grammar
rules, and in the 1930s, they were totally rejected theoretically by the
Prague Linguistic Circle (Nestupný & Nekvapil 2006:66).
By this time [i.e., during the German occupation in World War
II], the Czech language was already fully developed and codi-
fi ed, so that it was both structurally and att itudinally resistant
to German. […] Linguistically there was no impact extending
beyond the period itself. However, for at least two decades,
Czechs developed a distaste for German even in simple ma-
nagement (Cizí slova, 1971: 14). Aft er WWII, the Institute of
the Czech Language […] was created in 1946 as the fi rst in-
stitution in the country to monitor Czech and to contribute to
its management. The Institute operates a language consulting
service. (Nestupný & Nekvapil 2006:67)
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