Indiana University Bloomington

Portal

Czech

Czech is a West Slavic language spoken by over 10 million people. It is an official language in the Czech Republic (where most of its speakers live), and has minority language status in Slovakia. Czech's closest relative is Slovak, with which it is mutually intelligible. It is closely related to other West Slavic languages (such as Polish), and more distantly to Slavic languages such as Russian. Although most Czech vocabulary is based on shared roots with Slavic and other Indo-European languages, many loanwords (most associated with high culture) have been adopted in recent years.

Department Slavic & East European Languages and Cultures