Word of the Week: sloka – ‘verse’
Sloka may seem like a humble Czech word, referring to the verse of a song or a stanza of poem, but it has a very distinct origin. It’s also a testament to how individuals can have a big impact on a language, if the conditions are right.
Josef Jungmann (1773 – 1847) was a leading figure in the Czech National Revival, a movement that wanted to promote and raise up Czech culture, society and language, to counteract the strong influence of German. One of the ways Jungmann achieved this was through his impressive multi-volume Czech–German dictionary. Sometimes, though, German had a word for which he could find no current Czech equivalent, so Jungmann had to coin new words, revive old ones, or even adopt words from unusual sources.
He in fact took sloka from Sanskrit, the ancient and prestigious language of India! In important Sanskrit hymns, like the Rigveda, a ślóka is a section of verse, like a stanza, a meaning that the word carried into the Czech language.
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Word of the Week
Danny Bate, our resident linguist, offers a selection of everyday Czech words, to discuss their history and show how interconnected and familiar the Czech language can be.
