| Chod dialect | |
| Nativename: | Czech: Chodské nářečí |
| States: | Czech Republic |
| Region: | Chodsko, Bohemia, around Domažlice |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Balto-Slavic |
| Fam3: | Slavic |
| Fam4: | West Slavic |
| Fam5: | Czech–Slovak |
| Fam6: | Czech |
| Glotto: | sout1722 |
| Notice: | IPA |
The Chod dialect (Czech: chodské nářečí) is a dialect of the Czech language. It is spoken in the region called Chodsko in southwestern Bohemia, around the town of Domažlice.[1] It belongs to the South-West Bohemian group of Czech dialects, but has important differences from the other dialects of that group. The speakers of the dialect have traditionally been called the Chods (Czech: Chodové). The Chod dialect is among the most well-preserved regional dialects in the Czech Republic.[2]
A 1976 study by Jaroslav Voráč showed that among younger speakers with varying academic qualifications, the only features listed above which are still retained fully are the lack of declension in possessives, the -ouc ending for families, and the long vowels in náše and váše. All other defining grammatical and phonological features in the dialect were by that time largely restricted to the older generation.
The music and folklore of the Chodsko region gave the dialect a literary presence. Chod folk music was collected and archived by the folklorist Jindřich Jindřich,[4] while the author Jindřich Šimon Baar published Chodské povídky a pohádky (Chod stories and tales) in 1922. The local culture of the region also influenced other writers including Alois Jirásek with his novel Psohlavci, in which most of the dialogue is in the Chod dialect.[5] Božena Němcová, whose family lived in the region, wrote of the culture and dialect in her Obrazy z oblastí Domažlického (Pictures from Domažlice Region), a collection of personal letters during her time in the region.