Neil Bermel: Developments in the implementation of the Rules of Czech Orthography in the 20th century

Neil Bermel (The University of Sheffield)

Orthographic change can occur both gradually and suddenly: it is subject to changes in the spoken code that may take a generation to bed in, and it can also be subject to decree such that overnight a new form can become “correct” while the previous form used for that purpose is now deemed “archaic”. Changes to Czech orthography over the past 150 years exhibit both these tendencies; in this talk, I will look at a variety of examples from some of the evergreens of Czech orthography, and propose a way of explaining some of the more dramatic and contradictory results.