Proposal for Czech Roots project page for Czech orthography

+13 votes
167 views

The following would be a proposal for addition to the project page:

Czech Orthography

 

Modern Czech orthography was implemented in the early 19th century. Prior to that were numerous changes in the writing of the Czech language that in comparison were relatively minor and incremental, and most of all, were not codified and therefore, not used consistently and universally.

The change to the modern version of Czech writing happened in the early to mid- 19th century. One result of this is that many expatriate Czech names are still based on the older orthography, another is that many searches starting with modern Czech names will have to include the older versions as well as soon as the records become older than 150 to 200 years.

The following list summarizes the major changes in writing:

Old Form

New Form

au

ou

w

v

g,y

j

je, ye

ě

cz

č

rz, rsch, rſſ

ř

sz,sch, ſſ

š

sch

nj,ny

dj,dy

tj,ty

ž

ň

ď

ť

 

Accented vowels (á, é, í, ó, ú, ů, ý) came in use around the same time and denote a long vowel.

in Policy and Style by Helmut Jungschaffer G2G6 Pilot (591k points)

What is the recommended way to enter LNABs for old Bohemian records then? I have a line of Syříneks that earlier than 1750 or so start to show up as Siržinek or Syržinek in the birth record, sometimes differing among siblings.

 

At this point in time I can only give you my opinion and procedure and the rationale for it: I'm using what I find in the record (with the possible exception of ſſ (two long s's) denoting the -sch- sound). My rationale for this is that numerous people emigrated at various times taking the then current orthography along with them. Using modern Czech orthography would mean that all those Dworschaks in Germany, Austria, the USA and other places all of a sudden would descend from a Dvořák which in my opinion is just not historically correct.
I can relate Mr. Sirinek, I have had to muddle through Krizenecky, Krizenecka and Americanized Krizenesky among siblings. To use or not use the diacritical marks has not been clear up to this point.  It has not always been  easy to determine the appropriate policy and style.

1 Answer

0 votes
I am all for it.  It is unclear whether this is being recommended as a resource page, policy page, or both but in any case, I think it would be great!
by Living Anderson G2G6 Mach 7 (78.4k points)

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