How Many Letters in the Czech Alphabet? 42, and Why

The Czech alphabet has 42 letters in the standard modern count. So the short answer to how many letters in the Czech alphabet is 42, but the number only makes sense once you see what goes into it. It combines the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, 15 letters with a mark above them and one two-letter combination, ch.

This is the figure given by the Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre (ČÚZK) in its toponymic guidelines for the United Nations (4th edition, 2024). The same document says Czech has 36 phonemes, or distinct sounds, written with those 42 letters.

How many letters in the Czech alphabet: the 42 explained

Think of the alphabet in four layers. The first layer is the plain Latin set from A to Z. Every other letter is built on top of it.

• 26 base letters: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z.
• 6 long vowels with the čárka (acute): á é í ó ú ý.
• 8 letters with the háček (caron): č ď ě ň ř š ť ž.
• 1 letter with the kroužek (ring): ů.
• 1 digraph: ch, named chá, placed after h.

Add them up and you get 26 + 6 + 8 + 1 + 1 = 42. You can explore each one on the Czech letters hub or the interactive Czech alphabet chart.

Why some sources say 26, 41 or another number

You will find several totals online, and most are not wrong so much as counting differently. Here are the usual reasons.

Counting only base letters

Some sources say Czech uses the same 26 letters as English, with diacritics added. That view treats č as “c with a mark”. Czechs themselves do not see it that way: č has its own name, its own sound and its own place in the dictionary.

Leaving out Q, W and X

Because q, w and x appear almost only in foreign words, some learner charts drop them and arrive at 39. The ČÚZK count keeps them.

Folding long vowels into short ones

In Czech alphabetical sorting, á files close to a, so a few lists treat long vowels as variants rather than letters. A list that also skips the rare ó can end up at a figure such as 41. These are presentation choices, not a different alphabet.

What is not a letter of the Czech alphabet

Knowing how many letters in the Czech alphabet also means knowing what falls outside it. A few things look like letters but are not counted.

• Dz and dž: these sounds exist, mostly in loanwords such as džus (juice), but they are written as two letters. Slovak, by contrast, counts both as letters; see Czech vs Slovak.
• Ou: the common diphthong in mouka (flour) is one sound but two letters.
• ä, ö, ü: the ČÚZK guidelines note these appear mainly in borrowed proper names. They are not Czech letters.
• Cyrillic: Written Czech has used the Latin script since its earliest records. The first Czech glosses from around 1100 are in Latin letters, as Radio Prague explains in its piece on Jan Hus and Czech spelling.

Letters versus sounds

Why 42 letters for 36 sounds? Some letters share a sound. I and y are both [ɪ], í and ý are both [iː], and ú and ů are both [uː]. W sounds like v, and q and x are really “kv” and “ks”. Ě is not a separate vowel at all; it marks a softening of the consonant before it.

The reverse happens too. A single letter x stands for two sounds, while the two letters ch stand for one sound, [x], like Scottish “loch”. The Czech alphabet pronunciation guide maps every letter to its sound.

How many letters in the Czech alphabet compared with other languages

Czech is not unusual for a Central European language. Slovak counts 46 letters, because it adds ä, ĺ, ľ, ô, ŕ and treats dz and dž as letters. English has 26. Polish, written differently, has its own set of accented letters. The difference lies in whether a language adds marks to letters or combines letters, a choice Czech made in the late Middle Ages, as the háček page explains.

The 42 letters in alphabetical order

Here is the full order Czechs use in dictionaries and school lists:

a, á, b, c, č, d, ď, e, é, ě, f, g, h, ch, i, í, j, k, l, m, n, ň, o, ó, p, q, r, ř, s, š, t, ť, u, ú, ů, v, w, x, y, ý, z, ž

Three things stand out. First, ch comes after h, so in a Czech dictionary chléb (bread) is found after hrad (castle), not after cukr (sugar). Second, č, ř, š and ž each start their own section, so a word beginning with č comes after every word beginning with plain c. Third, the alphabet ends on ž, not on z, which is why Czech sites talk about “A to Ž”.

The long vowels sit right after their short partners in the list, but in practical sorting they behave almost like their base letter. That is one reason casual counts vary while the standard list stays at 42.

Common mistakes when counting Czech letters

• Forgetting ch. It is easy to miss because it is two characters, but it is one letter after h.
• Counting dz and dž. They are letters in Slovak, not in Czech.
• Counting ou as a letter. It is a diphthong written with two letters.
• Mixing uppercase and lowercase. 42 is the number of letters, not of characters; with both cases you have 84 forms.
• Assuming Czech uses Cyrillic. It uses the Latin script, like English.

Ready to test yourself? Try the Czech alphabet quiz.

Frequently asked questions

How many letters in the Czech alphabet are there?

42 in the standard count: 26 Latin letters, 15 letters with diacritics and the digraph ch, counted as one letter.

Why do some sources say the Czech alphabet has 26 letters?

They count only the base Latin letters and treat č, ř, á and the rest as accented variants. Czechs regard them as separate letters.

Is ch one letter in Czech?

Yes. Ch is a single letter named chá, and it sorts after h in dictionaries.

Are dz and dž letters in Czech?

No. In Czech they are written combinations of two letters. Slovak counts them as separate letters.

Does Czech use the Cyrillic alphabet?

No. Czech is written in the Latin script with extra marks such as the háček and čárka.

Sources

• ČÚZK: Toponymic Guidelines of the Czech Republic, 4th ed. (2024), UNGEGN
• Wikipedia: Czech orthography
• Radio Prague International: What does Jan Hus have to do with Czech spelling?
• Wikipedia: Slovak orthography

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