Souhlásky

Souhlásky are a class of speech sounds produced with constriction or occlusion in the vocal tract and are contrasted with vowels, which form the syllable nucleus. In Czech, souhlásky include stops, fricatives, nasals, liquids, and semivowels. They can be voiced or voiceless and may occur in different parts of the mouth, giving a diverse inventory used in Czech spelling.

Manner and place of articulation categorize Czech consonants into familiar groups: stops or plosives p, b, t, d, k, g; fricatives f, s, z, š, ž, h; nasals m, n, ň; liquids l, r; semivowel j; and affricates such as c (pronounced ts) and č (pronounced tʃ). The alveolar trill r and the palatal nasal ň are characteristic features of Czech phonology. In addition to these, the digraph ch represents a velar fricative /x/. The rhotic ř is a distinctive Czech sound often described as a raised or specialized rhotic with frication.

Czech orthography reflects these sounds with special letters and diacritics. The letter ř denotes a unique rhotic, while ň, ď, and ť indicate palatalized or softened variants of certain consonants. The letters č, š, and ž represent /tʃ/, /ʃ/, and /ʒ/ respectively, and c represents the voiceless affricate /ts/. Final devoicing is a common phonological process in Czech, so obstruents at the end of words often surface as voiceless.

In usage, souhlásky interact with vowels to form syllables and words, contributing to the distinctive sound structure of Czech.