Detailed information about the Language Consulting Centre
For many years, the language consulting centre has been offering help to Czech language users in dealing with language and communication issues. Nowadays it answers queries by telephone and issues written responses and expert opinions for a fee (see Základní kontakty - Ústav pro jazyk český). Consulting via telephone is steadily in high demand and the line is often busy. Therefore we recommend our clients to try to look up the solution of their language problem themselves in our electronic sources of reference before they actually contact our consulting centre.
Electronic sources of reference compiled by the Language Consulting Centre
The main source of information about the Czech Language is the Internet Language Reference Book. It contains more than 112,000 dictionary entries and detailed explanations of a wide range of linguistic topics (especially those repeatedly inquired about). The base reference texts for expanding and incorporating into the Internet Language Reference Book were taken from Pravidla českého pravopisu (Rules of Czech Orthography) and current grammar books. Many of the explanations in the Internet Language Reference Book are more detailed, comprehensive, precise and up-to date; e.g. those concerning capitalisation, punctuation, subject-predicate agreement, inflection of personal and geographical names, etc. Some of the new linguistic findings were drawn from special language manuals, studies in journals, Czech state standards, databases of the Language Consulting Centre or the Czech National Corpus. Reference texts in the Internet Language Reference Book also capture recommendations that are contradictory because other sources differ in their opinion on the matter. Shifts in understanding and usage of various language forms are also being traced (i.e. differences between outdated descriptions in language manuals and the actual practical usage). In such cases, a commentary is added and a topical solution is offered.
Another useful source of information on language is the Language Inquiry Database. It contains thousands of inquiries and responses and it is constantly updated with new ones. Users can browse for solutions to common language inquiries on the hand and unique ones on the other. The most recent language problems are to be found too. Furthermore, selected inquiries and responses are published in the Zajímavé dotazy (Interesting Inquiries) section or in the journal Naše řeč (Our Speech).
Queries to the Language Consulting Centre are crucial for developing and expanding our electronic reference sources. Queries are also essential for scientific research, see the detailed description of the activities of the Department of Language Cultivation). They serve as an important authentic source of information about actual language usage. Through consulting interactions the Language Consulting Centre staff find out what the language users need to know. The linguists also get feedback about which language issues are considered difficult or cause doubts. Ongoing language changes (variants, doublets, competing forms, etc.) are also reflected in language queries.
Your comments and suggestions to our linguistic resources are welcome as we continuously update and expand them for your convenience. Please send your feedback to poradna@ujc.cas.cz.
Other activities of the Language Consulting Centre
In addition to answering language queries and creating electronic resources, the Language Consulting centre also engages in language education and popularization activities. Its staff gives lectures to laymen as well as language professionals. Cooperation with television and radio as well as with some newspapers and other periodicals was established. Naturally, the centre is involved in popularization projects of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, too.
For more information about the current activities of the Language Consulting Centre or the Department of Language Cultivation, which operates the consulting services, see the virtual visit. Among other things, the video explains the criteria the consulting linguists base their answers on shows further processing of the language inquiry. The Language Consulting Centre's activities are also presented in the online booklet Jazyková poradna (Language Consulting Centre) from the series Věda kolem nás (Science Around Us).
We also recommend the 2022 book Jazyková poradna, dobrý den: O češtině a jejích uživatelích (Hello, Language Consulting Centre speaking: Czech language and its Users). The book analyses language consulting interviews and the relation of inquirers to language.
History of Language Consulting Service
The beginnings of institutional language consulting are associated with the journal Naše řeč. From its first issue, published in 1917, the journal provided readers with responses to their language queries. As there was a great demand for this service, the language consulting centre was launched less than twenty years later, in 1936. Its establishment was initiated by the Society for Slavic Linguistics in Prague, together with the editors of the journal Naše řeč, and approved by the Third Class of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts. The task of the language consulting centre was ‘to provide, for a modest fee, advice and assistance in language matters to anyone who asks for it’ (Naše řeč, 4-5/1936, p. 119). In 1946, the newly established Czech Language Institute took over the operation of the Language consulting Centre. At present, it is run by the Department of Language Cultivation.
Throughout its existence, the Language Consulting Service has been the only Czech studies research centre providing language consulting services and expert opinions to various users of the Czech language. The means for consulting have changed over the years. The number of queries sent by post decreased and the number of phone calls increased. Rapid increase in demand for language consulting came after the Institute had been connected to the Internet. Between 1998 and 2010, more than 73 000 queries (sent by email and post) were processed. However, for capacity reasons, the email language consulting had to be discontinued in 2011. At present, the Language Consulting Service replies to around 5,000 queries a year, most of them being phone calls.