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Marie Novotná: Adaptation of foreign words into Czech 117
3.2 The journal Naše řeč [Our Language]
In order to follow the evolution of academic views on foreign words,
the Czech Academy journal Naše řeč [Our Language], published since
1917, might be of interest. Originally, it had as its purpose “educat-
ing people about their language” (Meyerstein 1973:44) and up to to-
day, almost every issue of Naše řeč “discusses the correctness of loan
words or loan translations” (op. cit.).
Present guidelines include such questions as the following: Is
the borrowed word established in usage? Is it appropriate in
its particular discourse? Is it easy to replace – for weekend and
smog, for instance, the answer would be no. Is the borrowing
correctly formed according to the rules of Czech derivation?
Current preoccupation no longer focuses on Germanisms but
on the fl ood of loans from all kinds of languages into styles
ranging from technical to professional slang, and from enter-
tainment such as sports or modern music to everyday speech.
The issue of language survival has disappeared and, with it,
the need for language planning in a defensive sense. (Meyer-
stein 1973:44)
3.3  Rules of Czech Spelling
3.3.1 The first editions
The handbook Rules of Czech Spelling is “[b]y far the most infl uential
instrument of language management with regard to spelling” (Neu-
stupný & Nekvapil 2006:82). It contains not only an orthographic but
also a morphological part. As mentioned in section 2.2.4 above, the
fi rst Rules were published in 1902, and they are revised every now
and then. The dates of the more substantial revisions are 1913, 1941,
1957 and 1993. Let us look at what the diff erent revisions represent
regarding the questions of transcription and declension of foreign
words.
In the Rules from 1913, the transcription of foreign words is not
mentioned at all. The section “How to decline foreign names” (Rules
1913:22–) states that they are partially to be declined and partially
not. Furthermore, it says that Slavic names should always follow one
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