If these bones could talk…
When I moved to Prague in 1999, hardly speaking a word of Czech, I faced more than a few barriers when it came to understanding, and being understood, in my new surroundings.
One of my first language lessons came from the cashier at the local grocery store, who would sing out the sum I owed her with great joy. I can still remember the sound and intonation of her voice as she would say, “Sto padesát šest padesááát?” I also remember the great pride I felt when I finally understood well enough to put down exactly 156 and a half Czech crowns.
Fortunately, just in time for Christmas, I’d mastered most numbers in Czech. Armed with this knowledge, I was able to buy:
My husband’s gift
A tree with a few straw ornaments
A live fish from a huge vat of water just down the street (to eat, not as a pet, though it could have just as easily become one if it hadn’t been for creative use of sign-language)
The best part was I still had enough cash leftover for us to take a day trip to Kutná Hora, famous for its “bone church”.
The Sedlec Ossuary is decorated with the skeletons of somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 people. Their bones have been artistically rearranged to decorate the chapel.
We arrived at Prague’s main bus depot in plenty of time purchase our tickets. But using the wrong case endings for the name of the town and ignoring the čárka (the accent over the “a” of Kutná) when pronouncing the name of the town rendered us unintelligible. The only thing we had managed to communicate an hour later to the person at the wicket was our frustration.
Make no bones about it, it turns out those little commas over the vowels are pretty important in Czech!
Czech pronunciation is actually pretty regular, which is good, because it helps make up for the mind-boggling 7 grammatical cases you need to wade through in order to know how to treat a noun.
The basic guide to Czech diction is:
1. pronounce every letter
2. the first syllable is always stressed.
But when you see an accent over a vowel, it indicates that the vowel should be lengthened. Take the name of the famous Czech composer Leoš Janáček ['ja.na:.t∫ɛk] for example: the stress will be on the first syllable [ja], but the second syllable [na:] will be lengthened.
Recently, this lengthening idea struck me in the piano piece Kolombína tančí (Columbina Dances) by Bohuslav Martinů. The rhythms of this piece reminded me of the rhythms of the Czech language. To me, as a foreigner, the language has an unexpected syncopated quality to it, with certain syllables prolonged in unexpected places, a little like what happens on the prolonged second beat of bars 2 and 4, and again at bars 10 and 12, in the main theme.
Kolombína tančí
From Book I of Puppets (Loutky) by Bohuslav Martinů
The piece is a waltz, and so the first beat of the bar will always be strong, much like the first syllable of a Czech word will always be strong. In bar 2, Martinů draws our attention to the second beat by the absence of a downbeat in the right hand. Our ear is further attracted to beat 2 because of the lengthened dotted quarter note and the crescendo. I like to think that this gives us license to lengthen that dotted quarter a little longer, much like we would do with the second syllable of the name Janáček.
I can’t help but wonder what words Martinů was singing when he composed this sweet waltz!
You can listen to a recording of me playing Kolombína tančí here:
We never did get to Kutná Hora that day. But I learned a valuable lesson: I began to notice that if I spoke as though I were singing, much like our friendly neighbourhood cashier would do, people were much more likely to figure out what it was I was trying to say, even with my abominable grammar.
And when I did finally make it to Kutná Hora a few weeks later, hitching a ride with a friend, I had no trouble at all understanding the beautiful, new and intricate story these bones came together to tell.
I’d love to hear your thoughts! Have you noticed an unexpected way that language has influenced your life? Let me know in the comments!
