CULTURE: What’s in a Name? – Less said, the Better!

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

David Rocks

PRAGUE, May 5 1998 (IPS) - The five-years-old Czech Republic continues to ponder an issue that any other youngster generally has accepted at the same age: his or her name.

Certainly the Czech Republic known in the vernacular as ‘Ceska Republika’ – has a formal name, as do the Republique Francaise, Bundesrepublik Deutschland and the Republica Italiana. It’s just that those three countries are better known in English and other languages as France, Germany and Italy.

“It’s shameful that this country has been around for five years and there’s still no agreement on a short name,” grimaces Jiri Felix, a language professor at Charles University. “This is a question of international prestige for our country. Who in the world says, ‘I’m going on vacation to the Kingdom of Spain?’ Or, ‘I’ve just returned from a visit to the Republic of Italy?”

It’s clear that ‘The Czech Republic’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue in casual conversation, say in the way that ‘Czechoslovakia’ did prior to 1993 or in the way that “Slovakia” is known, instead of the Slovak Republic, since their breakup. But no one here can agree on a short form of “Cech Repub;lic” or indeed, if one is needed at all.

“Always using the long name just isn’t pragmatic,” says Rudolf Sramek, a professor of Czech language at Masaryk University in Brno. Laying out a map of Europe on a table, he laments, “Our country doesn’t have a name here because ‘Czech Republic’, even if abbreviated, couldn’t fit. We’re the only country in Europe except Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican that’s on the map without a name. Even Liechtenstein is there, but we’re not.”

While the Slovaks had it easy – the region in which they live had long been called Slovakia – the question has been more difficult for the Czechs. As often as not, Czechs refer to their country as the “Czech lands” – in the Czech language, ‘Cechy’ – because they can’t seem to come up with anything better and ‘the Czech Republic’ sounds too formal for everyday use.

One possible name would be Bohemia, the English term for the western portion of the country. Problem is, the word doesn’t have that meaning in Czech. English-Czech dictionaries translate ‘Bohemian’ simply as ‘Cech’ (pronounced Czech), someone from the “Czech lands.”

In the Czech language, a ‘bohemian’ is someone who may forget to shave and spikes his morning coffee with cognac after staying out late pondering poetry and politics. The name Bohemia also ignores the Czech regions of Moravia and Silesia. So how about a bow to the Moravians with, perhaps, The Republic of Bohemia and Moravia? This, it turns out, would stir up too many unpleasant memories.

“During World War II, the Germans referred to our country as ‘The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’, and they shortened it to ‘Tschechei’, but both were always used pejoratively,” says Libuse Cizmarova of the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Institute for the Czech Language.

Some have even proposed that the country’s name be changed to Czechomoravia, a sort-of nod to the federation that foundered five years ago. But that, others fear, could lead to endless arguments over whether the name shouldn’t perhaps be spelled ‘CzechoMoravia’, or even ‘Czecho-Moravia.’

The Czechoslovak Federal Parliament actually spent weeks debating similar issues. “Czechomoravia is a possibility, but it’s still long,” Cizmarova says, “and the Silesians might be offended.”

Other, variants have also been proposed but haven’t really taken hold: Czechovia, Czechistan and Czechlands, or, perhaps less seriously, Lagerlandia, due to the fine quality of the country’s beer – Vaclavia, in honour of the dissident-turned-playwright- turned-president, Vaclav Havel — or Vltavia, after the main river flowing through Prague. Now, after five years of indecision on the matter, a group of academics, linguists and cartographers is launching an initiative to make the country’s official short name ‘Cesko’, translated as ‘Czechia’, ‘Tchequie’ and ‘Tschechien’ in English, French and German, respectively.

They are sending the president, prime minister and other political leaders, as well as all of the country’s media outlets, an information packet laying out all of the linguistic, historical and geographical reasons that the country should be called Czechia.

The name dates to the 14th century and appeared in a Czech dictionary in 1777, the packet says. Furthermore, Cesko was used early on in the federation with the Slovaks, when the country was officially called ‘Cesko-Slovensko’, and the name fits all of the grammatical norms of the Czech language.

Still, why bother? Just ask cartographer Pavel Bohac. “The name Czech Republic takes up the space of other important information on the map,” he says, thumbing through an atlas. “Things in Europe are just too close together.” And Sramek says he was angered when he saw that the Czech hockey players who won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Nagano had the word “Czech’ written on their backs, presumably because “Czech Republic’ didn’t fit and the Olympic Committee presumably didn’t want to use ‘Czechia.’

“There are economic reasons for this as well,” Sramek sputters. “In advertising and printing, if you use the name ‘Czech Republic’, it’s longer than ‘Czechia’, and that costs money. And think about stamps, how many problems that two-word name creates? And what about tables and charts?”

The pro-Czechia movement, however, faces two serious problems: apathy and active opposition. The latter starts all the way at the top: President Havel once said, “hearing the name ‘Cesko’ makes my skin crawl.” And former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus has said he would never call the country Cesko.

The Czech citizenry, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be as up in arms over the question as the academics are. A recent poll by the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes found that 51 percent of Czechs don’t think the country needs a short name at all, while 19 percent believe ‘Cechy’ should be the name and 10 percent prefer ‘Ceskomoravsko'(in English: Czechomoravia)

‘Cesko’ (Czechia) finished fourth, with the support of only 7 percent of the respondents. And that leaves academics such as Sramek pleading with teachers, politicians and journalists to begin using the name in their speeches, lectures and dispatches. If people get used to hearing ‘Cesko’ or Czechia, Sramek says, they’ll come to accept and even love the name.

“Use the name Czechia in that newspaper that you write for,” Sramek told reporters. “You can say that I told you to do so, and I’m the head of the Onomastic Commission of the Czech Academy of Sciences – that’s the commission that oversees names – I’m a professor of Czech language and vice president of the World Onomastic Organisation, so you’ve got it from the highest level that Czechia is okay.”