- The teaching of Czech language was introduced in the former Department of Modern European Languages at the University of Delhi in 1970s. Currently, the Department of Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian Studies at the University of Delhi is the exclusive educational institution offering the courses of the Czech language in India.
Every year, around 40 students enroll in Czech language courses of three different levels, in which they learn through the combination of communicative, direct and contrastive (through English and Hindi) method, with the help of technology, workshops, movie screenings, social networks etc.
After the successful completion of all three courses, students should be able to work or study independently in the Czech language.
Besides the language studies, students regularly participate in different cultural events related to the Czech language.
The Department of the Czech language also cooperates closely with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in India. The Czech language belongs to the West Slavic group of the family of Indo-European languages. It is the official language of the Czech Republic and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. In the Czech Republic, about 10.7 million people speak Czech as their mother tongue. Including people who use Czech as their second language in different parts of the world, the number of the speakers of the Czech language reaches approximately 13.2 million in total.
The Czech language developed from Old Church Slavic language in the end of the 9th century, it has been influenced by Latin and German. Since the 14th century, Czech has been the language of a continuous stream of literary production, although, as a consequence of the integration of the Czech provinces into the Habsburg Empire, it was used rather infrequently for higher literary purposes for the most part of the 18th century.
The Czech language has been recorded, described, and analyzed in a number of grammars (the first Czech grammar was published in 1533) and dictionaries (the early dictionaries, written in verse, originated in the 2nd half of the 14th century). The modern written standard Czech is directly based on the standardization elaborated during the period of the Czech National Revival in the beginning of the 19th century.
In 2004, the Czech Republic entered the European Union and its free-market economy has widened the scope of trade with India. The need for specialists in the language in Czech and Indian companies as well as language institutions is proliferating.
Czech higher education system offers interesting opportunities for foreign students: universities provide the range of scholarships and studies are free of charge for foreign students who are able to study in Czech. In 2017, over 42 000 foreign students were studying in the Czech Republic and their interest is growing as the offer of study programmes and courses taught in foreign languages is increasing.
- Certificate in Czech Language
- Diploma in Czech Language
- Advanced Diploma in Czech Language
- Important Links for Czech Language