Abstract
The paper deals with authentic written and spoken utterances of ordinary Czech people of the turn of the 19th century, as recorded in linguistic works by the Czech philologist and translator František Jan Tomsa (1751-1814). It analyses the examples published in the books Elementarwerk der böhmischdeutsch-und lateinischen Sprache (1784), Von den Vorzügen der čechischen Sprache (1812), Über die Veränderungen der čechischen Sprache (1805), and Über die Bedeutung, Abwandlung und Gebrauch der čechischen Zeitwörter (1804).
These works were at least partly written with scholarly precision and often provide accurate information about who said what when, and in what situation. Thus they represent a unique source of information not only about the manner of speaking or writing of ordinary Czech people at the beginning of the National Revival period and about the differences between the language spoken in Prague and in the country, but also about the usual topics of conversation.
Thus, they can be of interest not only for the philologists, but for many other scholars including the historians of agriculture.