I am currently directing a production of Brundibar at Opera Theater of St. Louis, and I have a question about names. Our main character is listed as Aninka in the score and often referred to as Aninku. Is this a nickname? Are there other forms of the name? Are there nicknames for other names like Pepicek, Petr and Eva? Also, is Petr pronounced as in the United States with an ee as in tree or is it an a sound as in neighbor? Same question for Eva. Thanks in advance for you help. Doug
In Czech we have 7 cases of all nouns so this rule applies to all names etc. For instance Aninka is 1st case. Aninku would be in relation like (I saw Aninka = videl jsem Aninku etc.). The whole pattern is: 1. Aninka (kdo, co = who, what) 2. Aninky (bez koho, ceho = without who, what) 3. Anince (komu, cemu = to whom, what) 4. Aninku (koho, co = who, what) ... different from 1st case) 5. Aninko! (calling Aninka) 6. o Anince (o kom, o cem = about who, what) 7. s Aninkou (s kym, cim = with whom, what) The easiest way how to explain this is that we do not use that many articles, prepositions etc. like English; we change the words itself. Anyhow, Aninka is a soft form of the word Anna, Pepicek is a home name for Josef. Pronunciation is a bit different from English. I've been learning English for some 25 years and till now I have a hell of the time with these 3 letters: A, E, I. Because in English A is somewhat pronounced like Czech E, English E like Czech I and English I like Czech A. What a mess :wink: I mean somewhat pronounced like, not exactly. So for instance Eva (or Anna) would be pronounced like Eva or Anna in Spanish, not in English - if it helps you somewhat. Even my name Dana got "changed" a bit here in the USA. I still call my name like I am used to but many people misspell my name as "Donna" unless they know me better.
This could help a bit: http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html English pronunciation of Petr would be writen as "Pít(r)", neighbor would be nejb(r) - so first half of "a" sound will work just fine more like first e in ex-wife.
Thank you, this is tremendously helpful. Would you attempt to use any of the alternate forms in English, or would you just call her Aninka? Doug
I would stick with Aninka but pronounced like Aninka in Czech - I do not think it is correct to "americanize" foreign words. So "A" would be pronounced like A in Spanish (or the first part of the English "I") and "ni" ... that's a tough one ... because "n" is supposed to be "soft" (maybe like 2nd "n" in Spanish word "nino") and "i" is pronounced somewhat like English "e". Hope I did not get you confused here too much :? . The best would be if some Czech native speaker told you the correct way of reading it.
Mareček is probably the only one. Many other names have several "levels" of diminutives, for example Lukáš - Luki - Lukášek Tomáš - Tom - Tomášek Karel - Kája - Karlíček While the last one (-ček, -šek) is used mostly for small children while the second also for adult persons (a familiar form). I cannot find anything similar for Marek.
Jep, I came to this form, too. But for me it doesn't sound like diminutive or a familiar form but rather like something ugly, like if you aren't very nice to Marek when you call him this way