Meanwhile I thought I'd have a little look at Wikipedia. What most surprised me was the names. Until recently it was usual to be given a prescribed first name, named after the Roman Catholic Saint from the Roman Catholic Calendar on whose day you were born.
Therefore, if a traditional older person in Prague told you their name, and it was a saint's name, you would automatically know their birthdate, at least the day and month, not their age. You would be able to wish them happy birthday and send them a birthday greeting.
But the Czech language also has some other peculiarities. My surname would change. Female surnames have different endings to masculine names.
Problem
How would I introduce myself?
Answer
Here's the solution, check the popular names and family names in Wikipedia.
You can see that Alicia Markova, if she had come from Prague, would be the daughter of a man whose surname was Mark. Her brother's surname would be Mark. Her mother's surname would be Markova.
Story
When I visited St Albans I went into the cathedral which was free to visit and had an exhibition on the history of the cathedral and city. I read a medieval document which was very hard to understand because it concerned two characters, both called John, involved in a conflict. Both men had their names spelled differently, changing throughout the document. This made the events described very hard to follow.
For example, "John said that Jon owed him money but Jonn also said that John had repaid half the money but John denied this because Jon had said that Jonn ..."
The same change of spelling applied to all the other words. "We noe that hee hadd sed know but now that the judge has said that no dose not meen know ..."
I then realised the advantage of fixed spelling.
I am now very interested in how languages and names very and what they imply and tell us.
Tip
Even if you can't learn the language, you can have an interesting conversation with somebody from Prague or the Czech Republic about their name and birthday and the names of members of the family and friends and colleagues.
Here are some of the most interesting parts of the Wikipedia article:
"During the Communist era, parents needed a special permission form to give a child a name that did not have a name day on the Czech calendar. Since the Velvet revolution in 1989, parents have had the right to give their child any name they wish, provided it is used somewhere in the world and is not insulting or demeaning. However, the common practice of last years is that most birth-record offices look for the name in the book "Jak se bude vaše dítě jmenovat?" (What is your child going to be called?),[1] which is a semi-official list of "allowed" names. If the name is not found there, authorities are extremely unwilling to register the child's name.[2]
"Czech parents remain somewhat conservative in their choices of baby names. In January 2004, the most popular boy's names were Jan (John), Jakub (Jacob or James) and Tomáš (Thomas). The most popular girl's names were Tereza (Theresa), Kateřina (Katherine) and Eliška (Liz or Elise). Throughout all the nine years, the name Tereza is ruling among girls born in January every year.
"What is not shared with English but is similar to North American native languages is the extremely colorful nature of some Czech surnames, such as Brzobohatý (Soon to be rich), Volopich (Pricking an ox), Urvinitka (Tear a string), Rádsetoulal (Liked wandering around), Stojaspal (Slept standing), Vítámvás (I welcome you), Tenkrát (Back in those days), Skovajsa (Hide yourself!), Nebojsa (Don't be afraid!), Skočdopole (Jump in a field!), Vozihnoj (Driving with manure), Osolsobě (Salt for yourself!), Ventluka (Knocking outward), Rádsetoulal (Usurped in vain), Nejezchleb (Don't eat bread!), Potměšil (He sewed in the dark), Přecechtěl (He wanted anyway), Drahokoupil (He bought costly), Nepovím (Won't tell) or Blabla.
Female surnames[edit]
As in English-speaking countries, Czech females traditionally receive their father's surname at birth and take their husband's name when they marry. However, the names are not exactly the same; the endings differ to fit into the Czech language's systems of gender adjectives. For example, the tennis players Cyril Suk and Helena Suková are brother and sister; Suková is the feminine form of Suk. In fact, Czech female surnames are almost always feminine adjectives. There are several ways of forming them, depending on their male counterpart:
If the male surname is a masculine adjective (ending in -ý), the female surname is simply the feminine equivalent. Thus, a girl whose father's surname is Novotný would have the surname Novotná .
If the male surname is a noun, the female surname takes the suffix -ová, making it a feminine adjective:
Novák becomes Nováková
So Kim Novak is Kim Newman. But when she visits Prague she would be called Kim Novákova. (I keep adding the accent on the second a in the surname but the system keeps removing it.)
"-ová is still added, even when speaking of foreigners ("Angela Merkelová"). Because gender-marked suffixes are inherited in the Czech grammar and also because the gender of a person could be told straight from the surname regardless of the context, Czechs tend to add a feminine suffix to the surnames of Czech as well as foreign women surnames. Thus, e.g. American first lady Michelle Obama is referred to as Michelle Obamová in the Czech press."
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker, teacher of languages.
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