The Czech alphabet consists of 42 letters (or more precisely - graphemes):
- A, Á, B, C, Č, D, Ď, E, É, Ĕ, F, G, H, Ch, I, Í, J, K, L, M, N, Ň, O, Ó P, Q, R, Ř, S, Š, T, Ť, U, Ú, Ů, V, W, X, Y, Ý, Z, Ž
Most of the diacritic letters were brought into the alphabet by a reform of Jan Hus at the beginning of the 15th century to replace the digraphs and trigraphs used to write down Czech sounds that had no equivalent in the Latin alphabet. During the 16th century, the letter "Ů", indicating the long U (i.e. having the same meaning as "Ú" but written in different context), has been added to the list. The only digraph that was left in the alphabet is "Ch", being ordered between the "H" and "I" letters, indicating the sound similar to the German "ch" or the Russian "Х";
The acute accent letters (Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ý) indicate long vowels. They have the same alphabetical ordering as their non-diacritic counterparts. The caron accent "ˇ" indicates a palatalization of the appropriate base letter. Letters with the caron accent are ordered behind their corresponding base letters.
In computing, several different coding standards have existed for this alphabet:
See also: Latin alphabet, Hacek
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