Strč prst skrz krk

Waveform and spectrogram for the Czech expression.

Strč prst skrz krk (pronounced [str̩tʃ pr̩st skr̩s kr̩k]  (Speaker Icon.svg listen)) is a tongue-twister in the Czech and Slovak languages that means "stick a finger through the throat".[1]

Many people know the sentence for both being valid and having no vowels. Each syllable has a liquid consonant (a consonant that sounds similar to liquid), all of which are r. They happen a lot in many Slavic languages, of which Czech and Slovak also has l, and Czech also has m. It is often used as such a phrase when learning Czech or Slovak as a foreign language.[1]

Many words in Czech and Slovak have no vowels, such as scvrnkls, čtvrthrst,[2] and čtvrtsmršť.[3] The last two are used to make talking easier.

There are other sentences in Czech and Slovak with no vowels, such as prd krt skrz drn, zprv zhlt hrst zrn, which means "a mole farted through grass, having swallowed a handful of grains".[4]

Related pages

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Le virelangue - jazykolam : strč prst skrz krk. Radio Prague (in français).[dead link]
  2. Wilson, James (2010). Moravians in Prague: A Sociolinguistic Study of Dialect Contact in the Czech Republic. ISBN 9783631586945.
  3. http://www.ujc.cas.cz/jazykova-poradna/porfaq.html#nej Archived March 9, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  4. Francis Tapon (May 22, 2017). "Czechia Has Won The Czech Republic Name Debate"". Forbes.