All Roads Lead to Prague

Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker, in From a Terrace in Prague, published in 1923, comments on the difficulties of the Czech language:

It is said that all roads lead to Rome; as many lead to Prague, as a glance at the map will show. There are first of all those oldest of roads—the waterways—along which moved wandering tribes in quest of betterment and adventure.

Two of these waterways meet just above Prague, the Vltava and Berounka; they open out from the wooded heights of the Bohemian Forest, the former river leading up towards a pass in those heights over which you descend to the Danube near Linz, the latter showing the way into the heart of Bohemia from the west from Bavaria.

It was by the latter route probably that the Boievari, a Celtic tribe, made their way after a short stay in Bohemia, to settle in the land that is called after them, Bavaria.

Bavarians, who had become thoroughly Germanized, and many other Teutons, frequently found their way into Bohemia by this route, notably in the fifteenth century, when a vast unwieldy army called up by Rome and led by an English Cardinal, tried conclusions with a nation in arms inspired by religious fervour and led by Žiška the Hussite, and was beaten ignominiously.

All along this route are landmarks of a history which tells of the attraction that Prague exercised on the rulers and people of neighbouring countries.

So Eger and Pilsen tell of the horrors of the War of Thirty Years, for which a Bohemian nobleman was largely responsible. Of him and his doings more hereafter. Eger, by the way is now called Cheb, a guttural Ch which is a difficult sound to begin a word with, but you have got to do it if you wish to be considered up to date.

The Czech language is difficult to pronounce, a fact of which the Czechs seem rather proud. Pilsen, which is known to us chiefly (and rightly) for its good beer, is now spelt Plzen; this, however, makes little difference to the pronunciation, and happily none at all to the quality of the beer. The Czechs are just a bit sparing of vowels; they prefer a good fat cluster of consonants, as, for instance, in Vltava, Brno, and other such pretty names, but then you simply insert an indefinite sound here and there between the spiky consonants, and all is well; anyone who knows Hindustani or Arabic will find it quite easy.

After all, if the Czechs prefer their language that way it is their concern, as long as they do not expect the world outside Bohemia to learn it.

Next: Prague and the Holy Roman Empire