Come to Moravia! - First Contact

From Italian 'ciao' - the default casual greeting all over the country, Prague and Brno alike, used for both hello and goodbye

Moravians say čau just as much. Zdar (clipped from nazdar) is heard everywhere too - it is not a regional marker. The old 'Zdař Bůh' is something else: the miners' greeting, still alive in the Ostrava coalfield

Universal Czech greeting, used everywhere - but in Bohemia it's the 'neutral' option between formal and čau

Ahoj is used too. Servus (Latin 'at your service', via Austrian German) feels most at home in Brno and South Moravia, though older speakers in Bohemia know it as well - more a flavour than a border

Originally a Sokol (gymnastic movement) greeting - in Bohemia it sounds slightly dated but friendly, like greeting a neighbor

Nazdar is common in Moravia too. Many Czechs feel that Moravians use the full 'Dobrý den' a little more readily in casual settings, but that is an impression, not a rule you can hear in every conversation

In casual speech people shorten it to 'Jak je?' (How is it?), in Prague and Brno alike. Praguers are teased for clipping everything, but that is a stereotype, not a dialect feature

In eastern Moravia (Valašsko, Slovácko), 'se' becomes 'sa' - showing the continuum toward Slovak. In the Lach dialects around Ostrava vowel length is lost altogether, so you hear 'Jak se maš?' with a short a

The universal filler, in Prague and Brno alike. How it 'sounds' regionally is mostly a matter of how people hear each other: Moravians call Prague delivery quick and flat, while Praguers themselves are parodied for drawling it ('vóle')

Same word, and to many Czech ears a warmer tune: eastern Moravian speech is widely heard as more sing-song. That is a perception, not a measured rule. The one documented regional rhythm is in the Lach dialects around Ostrava, which stress the next-to-last syllable and have no long vowels

'Jo' (yeah) and 'No' (well/yeah) are the Bohemian verbal tics - 'no' confuses foreigners who think it means 'no'

'No' is just as common in Moravia as in Bohemia, and so are 'Jasně' (sure) and 'Hm'. None of these places a speaker; listen for tož (well, so), the particle that really is Moravian

The iconic Bohemian ý→ej shift in adjective endings - 'dobrý' becomes 'dobrej', 'malý' becomes 'malej'. The single most recognizable Bohemian marker

Eastern Moravia (Slovácko, Valašsko) keeps the old ý, which sounds 'correct' to textbook learners and old-fashioned to Praguers. Moravia is not uniform, though: in Haná the same word is dobré (ý→é), and in the Lach dialects around Ostrava it is a short dobry

The ý→ej shift is not limited to adjective endings - it hits ý inside stems too: být→bejt, mýdlo→mejdlo, výborný→vejbornej

Eastern Moravia keeps the long ý (in Haná it is krásné). When an eastern Moravian hears 'krásnej den', the ej says 'from Bohemia' at once

The é→í shift: mléko→mlíko, létat→lítat, polévka→polívka. Very common in everyday Bohemian speech, not stigmatized

Eastern Moravia (Slovácko, Valašsko) keeps the old é: mléko, polévka, and the Lach dialects have a short mleko. Central Moravia does not: Haná and the Brno region share the é→í shift with Bohemia and say mlíko too. So mléko places a speaker in the east, not just 'in Moravia'

Prothetic v- before initial o-: okno→vokno, on→von, otevřít→votevřít. Bohemia's obecná has it everywhere, and it is one of the most parodied features of Prague speech. But it does not stop at the land border: the Brno region and western Haná say vokno too

Eastern Moravia (Slovácko, Valašsko), eastern Haná and the Lach dialects say okno with no v-. Since Brno says vokno too, the v- alone tells you 'not from the east', not 'from Bohemia'

Prepositions get the v- too: od→vod, on→von. 'Vod tady' (from here) is everyday obecná, heard all over Bohemia

Plain od in eastern Moravia and the Lach dialects. In Brno you will hear vod as well, because the prothetic v- reaches into central Moravia; only the east has no v- at all

Bohemian infinitives often drop the final -i: pomoci→pomoct, říci→říct. The speech is clipped and efficient

Regional Moravian speech may lengthen the vowel (pomóct) or say pomůct. These forms vary from village to village, so treat them as colour, not as a reliable marker on their own

Double Bohemian marker: prothetic v- (odkud→vodkud) and seš, the obecná form of jsi (you are). Note that Hanáci say seš too

No prothetic v-, and si: that is simply jsi as everyone pronounces it, because the j- is silent in the standard too. What places the speaker is that he did not say seš, which Bohemians and Hanáci would. Si for 'you are' is usual in eastern Moravia

Many Moravians describe Prague speech as flat, clipped and fast, while Praguers are parodied for drawling their long vowels. Neither is a measured rule: treat it as how people hear each other

Bohemians often call Moravian speech 'singing' (zpěvavá), especially the speech of the east. It is a widespread impression, not a documented rule. The one regional prosody that is documented belongs to the Lach dialects around Ostrava: stress on the next-to-last syllable and no long vowels