Spívají

Spívají is the Czech third-person plural present tense form of the verb spívat, meaning to sing or chant. This form is generally considered archaic or dialectal in modern standard Czech, where the corresponding form is zpívají, the present tense of zpívat. Spívají appears mainly in historical texts, regional speech, or stylistic contexts that aim to evoke older language.

The verbs spívat and zpívat are related and share a semantic field around singing, but spívat is much less common today. When spívají occurs, it often signals a more traditional, communal, or ritual sense of singing, or serves as a literary archaism rather than everyday speech. In contemporary usage, speakers would typically use zpívají for ordinary statements like “they sing.” The two verbs are conjugated similarly: spívám, spíváš, spívá, spíváme, spíváte, spívají; zpívám, zpíváš, zpívá, zpíváme, zpíváte, zpívají.

In pronunciation and orthography, spívají follows Czech rules, with the acute accent on í in spívají. For readers encountering older or regional texts, spívají may appear where modern Czech would have zpívají. An example in historical prose might read: “Lidé spívají písně při slavnosti,” whereas in standard modern Czech the natural rendering would be “Lidé zpívají písně při slavnosti.” See also zpívají, spívání, zpívání.