Dynamics of Cultural Czech of the 16th-18th Centuries. Four Spelling Case Studies

The monograph focuses on four orthographic and spelling phenomena, namely the prosthetic v-, such as in okno – vokno (window), the narrowing of é > í, such as in dobré mléko – dobrý mlíko (good milk), the diphthongisation of ý > ej, such as in bílý mlýn – bílej mlejn (white mill) and the verbal diphthongisation of ú > ou, such as in úmysl – oumysl (intention) in printed literary texts from the 16th-18th centuries. The monograph concentrates mainly on the linguistic analysis of contemporary literary sources in an attempt to capture the then-existing usage, developmental tendencies and differences from today's linguistic situation. The material is based on more than 100 prints from a range of religious, historiographic and linguistically reflective texts. The monograph contributes substantially to the understanding of 16th-18th century Czech language, adding new information to the existing knowledge and correcting some older assumptions, such as the idea of a linguistic decline wrongly attributed to Baroque Czech.