Current Dyslexia Research and Practice in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

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Czech and Slovak are closely related languages of the West Slavic subgroup of the Indo-European family. The two languages are broadly mutually intelligible, with similar roots and fusional morphology word structures. Both are highly inflected and hence have a predominance of multisyllabic words that can mark for a rich variety of inflectional and derivational grammatical information (Volín, 2010). Their distribution of word length is virtually identical, with words of three syllables being the most prevalent (40% in Czech, 38% in Slovak), followed by two-syllable words, then words of four syllables, with monosyllabic words ranking only in fourth place (Kessler & Caravolas, 2011). Both languages have a predominantly open (CV, CCV, etc.) syllable structure, and the singleton onset (C) is by far the most prevalent (Kučera & Monroe, 1968). A particular feature of Czech and Slovak phonology is that they allow for complexity in onset structure, with up to four consonants at the start of a syllable. In contrast, at the level of the coda (syllable endings), both languages have limited complexity allowing one or two consonants, but by far most frequent are open syllables (no consonant after the vowel).
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDyslexia in Many Languages Insights, Interactions and Interventions
EditorsGad Elbeheri, Gavin Reid, Angela Fawcett
PublisherRoutledge
Chapter6
Number of pages17
Edition1st
ISBN (electronic)9781003408277
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Jul 2024
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