Discussió:Nom txec

Not a real-life sentence

Just a remark by a native speaker of that language: While the sentence Pes dal Janovi vzteklinu. is completely correct as for grammar, no Czech would express it this way. In other words the sentence giving the dative example is nothing more than an odd construct. The real-life expressions are:

• if "the dog" as here in ca: translation (what the dog caused to John?): either Jan dostal od psa vzteklinu. (style-neutral, to get), Jan chytil od psa vzteklinu. (slightly colloquial, to catch) or Jan se od psa nakazil vzteklinou. (formal style, to become infected with)

• if "a dog" (who passed rabies to John?): Jan dostal vzteklinu od psa. / Jan vzteklinu dostal od psa. (style-neutral), Jan chytil vzteklinu od psa. / Jan vzteklinu chytil od psa. (slightly colloquial) or Jan se nakazil vzteklinou od psa. / Jan se vzteklinou nakazil od psa.

Unfortunately, none of these real-life expressions regarding poor John and his infection caused by a rabid dog uses dative case (and BTW the Czech Republic has bees rabies-free country since turn of the millenium :-)). I suggest for example: Pes pokousal Janovi ruku. = The dog has biten John's hand (NB the Czech verb used here suggests more than one bite).

The rest of the article seems OK. However, some details could be added or emphasised:

1. Vast majority of Czechs have exactly and only one first (baptismal) name. During the Communist era only one name was legally recognized, nowadays two names are allowed but only a tiny fraction of people uses this possibility (especially those with religious family background).
2. First name must be clearly masculine or feminine, unisex names are generally discouraged. This, coupled with fact that most of Czech surnames switches their ending with gender, ensures that unlike English no Mr/Ms markers are necessary - to native speakers the gender of a person is always clear solely from his/her name+surname.
3. The linked article calendari onomàstic txec should mark or otherwise visually distinguish several "names" as names of feasts. There are several such entries after them nobody actually has a personal name. (Nový rok = New Year Day, Hromnice = Candlemass, Svátek práce = Labour Day etc.). And several names are implicitely hidden under a fest name of Tři králové = Three Kings (i.e. Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar).
4. Significant portion of ethnic Czech have German surnames. This is partially also due to ancestry (as mixed marriages were quite common until WWII) but primarily because German was the first official language in the Habsburg monarchy (when surnames bacame mandatory under Empress Maria Theresa in late 18th century, in many cases German-run offices simply registered and affixed surname in German form even to ethnically Czech subjects). Someone called Rybář would become Fischer, Kučera registered in German translation as Kraus etc. For Jews only German surnames were permited. Therefore among Czechs having a German surname does not necesarilly indicate a German ancestry. On the other hand, among Austrians having a Czech surname is a strong indicator of Czech ancestry (this is especially common in Vienna due to mass immigration of Czech workers in late decades of the monarchy). After creation of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 and especially after liberation ftom Nazi occupation in 1945 the situation somewhat reversed and many people as sign of nationalism and ethnical self-declaration voluntarilly changed their German surnames to Czech ones or at least modified their spelling. While many German surnames retain their original spelling, many of them during course of time were accustomed to Czech pronunciation and nowadays are written such way (Jäger > Jágr, Schneider > Šnajdr, Neumann > Najman, Schwartz > Švarc).
5. One important point is completely missing (you can translate it from the corresponding en: article) - there is no mention of feminine form of surnames. Vast majority of surnames have two forms, one used for males another for females. For example Černá is the feminine variant of Černý and Nováková is the feminine of Novák. From grammatical point of view the first type (-á) is simply either feminine or masculine ending of an adjective-derived surname, the second type (-ová) denotes possession (Novák's [wife]]. A limited number of surnames have common form for both genders - these have ending either -ů (Janů, Petrů, Mikšů etc.) or -í (Kočí, Krejčí, Tachecí etc., for -í type the alternative feminine form with -ová also occurs - whether a woman uses unisex variant Krejčí or distinctly feminine Krejčová is a matter of personal choice or family tradition). Abroad this occasionally causes confusion when family members have apparently different surnames but Czechs naturally perceive them as one surname (Nováková being merely a derivative of Novák). Foreign-born citizens or native Czech women who marry foreign nationals are allowed to use those foreign surnames without adding the Czech feminine ending, if they wish so, in all other cases (natural-born Czechs without foreign links) dropping of -á/-ová and switching to a "default" masculine form of surname is disallowed. In contrast to Polish (and medieval Old Czech), modern Czech language does not have a separate feminine ending for unmarried girls (-ovna); a vestige of it survives only in name of 14th-century heiress of Czech Crown Eliška Přemyslovna. --Miaow Miaow (disc.) 05:31, 20 feb 2013 (CET)