The official language spoken in the Czech Republic is Czech. It is a West Slavic language closely related to Slovak and Polish, written in the Latin script, and spoken by over 12 million people including second language speakers

. Czech has a rich system of morphology, a relatively flexible word order, and features unique phonemes such as the raised alveolar trill represented by the letter "ř"

. The language has historical roots dating back to the medieval period and has undergone significant development and standardization, especially during the Czech National Revival in the 18th and 19th centuries

. While Czech is the dominant language, many Czechs also speak English, German, and Russian, particularly in urban areas