Word of the Week: národní – 'national'

Národní is a Czech adjective that translates to ‘national’. Just like in English, underlying the adjective národní is the Czech word for ‘nation’, národ.

English gets the words nation and national from Latin. In that ancient language, the root or core of these words, the nat- bit of national, refers to anything to do with births. Your nation was what you were born into. You can see that same ‘birth’-root at work in other words English has taken from Latin, like native, natal, nature, impregnate and innate.

The thing is, the same principle is actually at work behind our word národní. The -rod- bit of národní is all to do with birth and family. It’s there in Czech words like rodič ‘parent’, rodina ‘family’, porodit ‘to give birth’, and rodák ‘native’. English national and Czech národní are words constructed in the same way!