The Czech Alphabet

The Czech alphabet uses the following 41 characters (you need to configure your browser to use the codepage ISO 8859-2 to view them properly in the first column; in the pronunciation column, the special symbols are substituted whenever needed: the caron by "^", the acute accent by "-", and the ring by "+"). Note that "CH" is a two-character sequence rather then a single character, but it has some properties of a single character: it has its own pronunciation and a special position in sorting order. However, capital "ch" is either "Ch" or "CH", depending on context.

Several encoding schemes have been used for Czech. Among them, two compete until today: ISO 8859-2 (Latin 2), used on Unix systems, and Windows 1250 (Central and Eastern Europe), used on Microsoft Windows systems. Fortunately, both schemes differ only slightly (~ three letters of the Czech alphabet). In Prague Dependency Treebank we use the ISO standard, even when viewing trees using the Windows-based tool Graph. For each character, I indicate: its name; its uppercase and lowercase ISO code (in decimal); whether it is considered greater than or equal to the preceding one in the Czech sorting order; approximate pronunciation.

A	`A`	65	97		as u in cut
�	`A WITH ACUTE`	193	225	equal	long as in father
B	`B`	66	98	greater	b
C	`C`	67	99	greater	ts as in bats
�	`C WITH CARON`	200	232	greater	ch as in church
D	`D`	68	100	greater	d; but di = d^i
�	`D WITH CARON`	207	239	equal	dj as in duty
E	`E`	69	101	greater	as in met
�	`E WITH ACUTE`	201	233	equal	long as in bad
�	`E WITH CARON`	204	236	equal	be^, pe^, ve^ = bje, pje, vje de^, te^, ne^ = d^e, t^e, n^e me^ = mn^e
F	`F`	70	102	greater	f
G	`G`	71	103	greater	as in good
H	`H`	72	104	greater	as in half
CH				greater	as in Scottish loch
I	`I`	73	105	greater	as in bit
�	`I WITH ACUTE`	205	237	equal	long as in see
J	`J`	74	106	greater	y as in yes
K	`K`	75	107	greater	k
L	`L`	76	108	greater	l
M	`M`	77	109	greater	m
N	`N`	78	110	greater	n; but ni = n^i
�	`N WITH CARON`	210	242	equal	nj as in canyon
O	`O`	79	111	greater	as in hot
�	`O WITH ACUTE`	211	243	equal	long as in short :-)
P	`P`	80	112	greater	p
Q	`Q`	81	113	greater	kv, not kw
R	`R`	82	114	greater	r, rolled in the front of the mouth
�	`R WITH CARON`	216	248	greater	somewhere between r and sh
S	`S`	83	115	greater	as in set
�	`S WITH CARON`	169	185	greater	sh as in short
T	`T`	84	116	greater	t; but ti = t^i
�	`T WITH CARON`	171	187	equal	tj, similar to tulip
U	`U`	85	117	greater	as in book
�	`U WITH ACUTE`	218	250	equal	long as in moon
�	`U WITH RING`	217	249	equal	long as in moon
V	`V`	86	118	greater	v
W	`W`	87	119	greater	v as in van
X	`X`	88	120	greater	x
Y	`Y`	89	121	greater	i as in bit
�	`Y WITH ACUTE`	221	253	equal	long i as in see
Z	`Z`	90	122	greater	as in zebra
�	`Z WITH CARON`	174	190	greater	zh as in pleasure

The Czech Keyboard

The standard Czech keyboard can be roughly characterized by the following:

The positions of "Y" and "Z" keys are swapped.
The most frequent accented lowercase letters are located on the keys for digits; the digits themselves are accessible with the shift key.
The both accented "u"-s are accessible by the right little finger.
There is a dead key that trigers the acute accent and (with the shift key) the caron. The trigered mark applies to the next letter, if possible. This is the only way for typing the less frequent lowercase and all the uppercase accented letters.
The ring accent can occur only above an "u" where, in contrary, no caron can occur. That is why many keyboards use the sequence "dead caron" - "u"/"U" to enter an "u" with ring above. However, other keyboards (including Microsoft Windows, I guess) alocate a "dead ring" key elsewhere, often to shifted semicolon, replacing the U.S. key for tilde.
Another dead key triggers the dieresis (umlaut) for the German letters (here transcribed) ae, oe, and ue. These are actually not elements of the Czech alphabet but they are contained in Czech words and names imported from German. The dieresis dead key replaces the backslash/vertical bar key. The backslash can be typed by right Alt+Q, the vertical bar can be typed by right Alt+W.
The punctuation marks, parentheses and other symbols are mostly relocated.

dead ring
;

1
+

2
�

3
�

4
�

5
�

6
�

7
�

8
�

9
�

0
�

%
=

dead caron
dead acute

backspace

tab

/
�

(
)

dead dieresis

caps lock

"
�

!
�

enter

shift

?
,

:
.

-
_

shift

Several variants of this standard keyboard exist, most of them being created for people who got used to the U.S. keyboard in times when Czech keyboards were not available. These are also called "amateur" or "programmer" keyboard layouts. They usually have the punctuation symbols and parentheses at the U.S. positions, only the digit row and the dead key remain Czech. Also, "Y" and "Z" are swapped back to their U.S. positions. Another variant leaves all the keys at their Czech positions, except for "Y" and "Z" that are swapped back. This keyboard is called "Czech QWERTY".

Baltimore, 1998