# Diphthong "uo" replaced by "ů"



## ytre

> I don't think the majority of Moravians say "oni chcú"


To put It in context...

Acording to one of general rules for writing ú and ů "oni chcú" is probably considered more incorrect then "oni chců" which is also incorrect.
But I hope I am correct if I claim "chců" as moravian dialect of middle Moravia - location called Haná (Olomouc, Prostějov, Hranice, Kroměříž and around - as location reference one may use: www cmail.cz/mapy/kct.htm map index and www cmail.cz/mapy/kct1.htm map borders layout) and dialect called Hanácký dialekt.

As born hanák I confirm You will not hear this form in towns often. People prefer to say: "chcou" before "chtějí" and both these before "chců". But I guess it may be used in rural areas and prefered by older people to say "chců".



> there are still fewer people speaking Hanák...


 That's strange shift in meaning. Hanák(si), Hanáci(pl) is used to refer to origin of male in meaning "He is hanák". Hanačka(si), Hanačky(pl) is used to refer to origin of female. It sounds strange if used with language. More often with language you will hear asexual form used - hanácký - which has meaning: owned by people of Haná.


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## Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

ytre said:
			
		

> Acording to one of general rules for writing ú and ů "oni chcú" is probably considered more incorrect then "oni chců" which is also incorrect.


Oh no. I really wish teachers in grade school would explain these things with something more than just "this is how it's done because I say so". 

A brief introduction for the non-Czechs here: There exist in the Czech orthography two letters: *Ú* and *Ů*, which both have the phonetic value /u:/ (at least they do NOW). To "avoid confusion" (quotation marks because I believe it actually increases confusion), kids in elementary school are made to learn the "rule" that *ú* is only written in the beginning of a word, and *ů* everywhere else, with the exception of compoud words such as "trojúhelník" (because it's "troj+*úhel*+ník").

The problem is, this is only true by sheer dumb luck, and it's not true at all in some dialects, as well as for recent (19th century and onwards) loan words.

The _real_ secret is that the letter *ů *originated as a ligature of *uo*, which was pronounced, well, /uo/, much like *ô* in Slovak. The present phonetic value /u:/ thus developed from the diphthong /uo/ (mirroring a similar shift in German), which in turn developed from an even earlier /o:/. (Btw, this also explains stem vowel alterations like "stůl/stolu", "kůň/koně", "vůle"/"volba" etc.; the difference was originally in vowel length only: "stól/stolu" etc.)

_Moral of the story: The letter *ů* represents the sound /u:/ where it developed from an earlier /o:/ via /uo/, whereas *ú* represents those occurences of /u:/ where the sound is original._ That's why there's "kůra" (tree bark / crust, native Czech word, originally "kóra") but also "kúra" (healing procedure; borrowed from German "Kur", cognate with the English word "cure"), and that's why *ú* is written in the initial position in native Czech words (úplný, úřad) - it's an original /u:/ that didn't mutate. And so is the Moravian /u:/ - as in _*"oni chcú"*_ - that corresponds to /ou/ in literary Czech and Bohemian dialects. There, /u:/ shifted to /ou/, spelled *ou*, usually not in the initial position - but in some Bohemian dialects you can indeed hear "ouplný", "ouřad", etc.

So, please forgive me for ranting like this, but when I go to Moravia and see signs like "KOLIBA POD HORŮ", I can't help but weep inside at the havoc the pragocentric education system has wreaked in Moravia's literacy. 




> That's strange shift in meaning. Hanák(si), Hanáci(pl) is used to refer to origin of male in meaning "He is hanák". Hanačka(si), Hanačky(pl) is used to refer to origin of female. It sounds strange if used with language. More often with language you will hear asexual form used - hanácký - which has meaning: owned by people of Haná.



In Czech, yes. How do you recommend we call it in English? "Hanák", as an abbreviation of the phrase "the Hanák dialect", seemed the most natural way to me. And, it appears, to the fine folks at Ethnologue as well (I'm not allowed to make links yet, look it up if you want).  

By the way, do Hanáks ever say "oni chcó", which would be consistent with the /ou/ -> /o:/ shift that (supposedly) took place there?


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## Tchesko

Exactly!  I was going to write something similar (not so well explained though) but had no time to do so...



			
				Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! said:
			
		

> By the way, do Hanáks ever say "oni chcó", which would be consistent with the /ou/ -> /o:/ shift that (supposedly) took place there?


 
I guess they do, as well as "oni só" (jsou - they are), "oni bodó" (budou - they will be) etc. I live in Olomouc (that is, when I'm not in France) but as nobody in my family really uses Hanák (hanáčtina or whatever you want to call it) I am not entirely sure...


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## Jana337

Thanks for an intriguing discussion about ú and ů. I would have written a defense of chcú but Tekeli-li was faster. 

I once did a research of "ů" to please the heart of an American friend - linguist. I found out that it was introduced in the 15th century, but not by Jan Hus as one would have expected (because Jan Hus was a great grammarian who replaced many diphthongs by simpler symbols - I would appreciate Mindstorm's explanation of the burning thingy  ). Read here about Jan Roh, the author of "ů". The symbol was chosen cleverly as it, in a sense, contains both "u" and "o".

Jana


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