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There are plans by the Czech Republic to adopt the name ‘Czechia’ in English in the hopes of making it simpler for people to say.
Neighbouring Slovak Republic has the alternative name Slovakia, but Czech Republic does not, a situation that has created clunky and linguistic issues.
To get around the problem Lubomir Zaoralek, the Czech foreign minister, has proposed the country adopts the name Czechia as its new one-word English name.
He said:
“It’s not good when a country does not have any clearly defined symbols or cannot say clearly what its name is”.
He added that he had encountered mangled attempts of a one-word name for his country while on his travels.
Much of the trouble, the minister explained, came from the lack of an agreed upon English translation of Cesko, the short-form Czech name for the country. In the past some people have used Czechlands while others, the minister added, have even press-ganged the adjective Czech into use as the country’s name
“We have a chance to tell the world that here in the Czech Republic we use the abbreviated name Cesko and, in our opinion, there is only one way to translate it,” said Mr Zaoralek.
Czechia, which has a Latin root, has been around since around 1841 but has struggled to make any headway and remains, at the moment, little used in the English-speaking world.
The foreign minister said that he hoped that the prime minister, president, defence minister and the heads of two houses of parliament will agree to adopting Czechia as the Czech Republic’s alternative name at a meeting later this week.
If agreement is reached the Czech Republic will then add the name to the United Nations Geographical Names database, which contains the official names of countries in six languages.
According to the UK Telegraph, Czechia’s chances of becoming the Czech Republic’s new shortened name are good. Milos Zeman, the Czech president, has already used it in speeches made during official foreign visits.