The Czechs in a Nutshell

The complexity of Czech may drive foreigners trying to learn it to utter despair. They can, however, take comfort in the fact that the language poses problems even for the Czechs themselves. In reality, there is not one Czech language, but three quite distinct versions of it: Spisovná čeština (Literary Czech), Hovorová čeština (Spoken Czech) and Obecná čeština (Common Czech).

Literary Czech is the official language as it is spoken on the radio and on television and at official occasions. However, only persons who want to be perceived as very educated or very important or both use the literary language in daily life. This leaves the Czechs with two possibilities: either to use Spoken Czech, which can be described as a light-version of Literary Czech, where the most bookish expressions are softened, either syntactically (pracuju instead of pracuji) or lexically (kytka instead of květ), or to embrace Common Czech, the language of the man in the street.

Naturally, every ambitious citizen aware of his or her social prestige despises Common Czech. But from a linguistic point of view, it might seem that Common Czech is the richest of the three versions. True, the grammar is a bit simplified compared to the standard language, but the wild array of slang expressions (often of German origin) and its immense capability of creating neologisms makes Common Czech extremely vigorous. It goes without saying that it functions as a continuous production plant for unbelievable obscenities (see: Cursing).

So, how do the foreigner cope with the fact that Czech comes in triplo? Basically, he or she doesn’t have to care. The Czechs themselves know better than anybody else how difficult their language is. Even natives quite often make funny mistakes when they’re trying to speak Literary Czech at some official occasion, and unwittingly mix Common Czech into their sober language.

Therefore, any foreigner who makes the most modest attempt to speak their mother tongue is usually greeted with boundless enthusiasm and support (see: Communication). But remember one crucial fact: the Czechs revel in self-flagellation, and often compete with each other to come up with the cruellest remarks about themselves and their country. If you, as a foreigner, do the same, even if your Czech is brilliant and your complaint is totally justified, you’ll be hated forever!

Dancing Schools

Life in communist Czechoslovakia had more than its fair share of absurd elements, but few things could beat the dancing schools. Just think about it: a Stalinist country (after 1968 neo-Stalinist), which was ruled by the proletariat’s dictatorship and officially worshipped Soviet culture, openly tolerated the existence of an institution so thoroughly petit bourgeois and reactionary as dancing schools. An American equivalent would probably be Joe McCarthy taking private lessons to learn to play the balalaika...

Yet due to a wholly unexplainable display of tolerance after their takeover in 1948 (see: Communism), the Bolsheviks decided not to replace the bourgeois dancing schools with something more progressive and Soviet-friendly, but let parents send their pubertal offspring to the courses, which they themselves had attended some decades earlier. Obviously, not even the Velvet Revolution did anything to change this. As a result, the traditional dancing schools from the heyday of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are still alive and kicking in the Czech Republic.

As the term itself indicates, the purpose of the dancing schools is to teach the youngsters the basic principles of a handful of the most common ballroom dances. But since the courses are attended by both young men and young women, the dancing school lessons also contain instructions about the basics of social manners according to long-established Central European protocol. In other words, they teach a young man not only how to lead a woman in a waltz, but also to behave gallantly and open the door for her, helping her with her coat or protecting her against any external danger.

Seen from a Western and politically correct standpoint, this represents a problem. In short: supporters of Western-style feminism will claim that the dancing schools cement gender roles, which they have tried to eradicate for several decades. Most Czech women, though, will probably claim that the ballroom dances are just another area of life where Czech men are allowed to behave like machos, while in reality they are totally controlled by their strong-willed women...