Stuart Hoskins comments

Posted in: 3rd Czech Festival in Japan to be held at Harajuku Quest Hall in Tokyo See in context

Burning Bush

Various Czech governments have been trying to promote the name “Czechia” for decades (English teachers – I was one – were ordered to teach this in the mid-1990s [we ignored this]), one of the (ridiculous) reasons being that anything with “republic” in its name sounds rather like a backward country, with hints of Communism.

However, despite your arguments, it is (unregulated) English that dictates what a country will be called in English; this is not something that can be imposed by a foreign government. Czechia sounds awful and so English speakers have an aversion to it (plus it is more readily confusable with Chechnya than you might imagine).

Furthermore, not even the presidential office (https://www.hrad.cz/en) and the cabinet office (https://www.vlada.cz/en/urad-vlady/) use Czechia, despite all the fanfare – they simply acknowledge that “Czechia” has been registered for UN purposes, but otherwise hasn’t caught on.

Nevertheless, now that Google has adopted “Czechia”, it may gain some traction. As for your claims regarding Cechy (Bohemia) and Cesko, there is no way on this godly earth you can historically equate them to “Czechia”.

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