Why is czech spelled with cz

I'm a professor of political science at Northwestern University. I respond to questions on college, Czech culture, and political science. Write to me at aroberts northwestern. View my complete profile. Thursday, March 08, Previous Posts Why have pictures of what look like high-school Like the names After giving my girlfriend a bunch of flowers, I w I'm not entirely sure if this is actually the right forum to ask this question maybe it would be more adequate in the English Forum?

Why isn't it " ch ech " or even ' che ck ' for that matter? I've tried googling and searching the forums but couldn't find anything that could shed a light on the matter. Has anyone got an answer for this unusual spelling? Czesi Czech people etc. English adopted the word Czech relatively recently I think it was in the 19th century and nearly with the original Czech spelling i. The Czech digraph ch is pronounced similarly like ch in German e.

Bach , or Scottish loch. The English cannot pronounce it properly, so they pronounce it as k. English-Ireland top end. Click to expand I see! Now that I got the answer, tonight I can finally sleep in comfort!

Thanks everyone! It was a common way to write Czech names in Latin texts long before Czechs started to write Czech texts in Latin script. The first Czech primitive spellings in Latin script adopted this Latin spelling and so did, likely under Czech influence, the Poles for Polish. For example all the printed maps of Bohemia which spread across Europe in the 16th and 17th century are full of Latinized and Germanized local names with "cz". English likely adopted that spelling directly from Latin, or indirectly via German, and for some words perhaps directly from Czech e.

Six months after Czechia was adopted, citizens of central European country seem in little doubt over what it should be called. It sounds too small, or like some dialect. While it would not disappear entirely, the Czech Republic tag, it was argued, was too long to attract attention on the global stage and woo foreign investment.

Czechia would simplify things and be a more recognisable name. Zeman used the shortened name throughout a recent interview with the Guardian. His initiative has now won the acquiescence of Britain and the US, among others. The US state department has also officially adopted Czechia as the short-form name, alongside the longer version.