INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The pronunciation of the Čech names should cause no difficulty. The stress accent is always on the first syllable. The vowels have the Italian values, those with an accent being the corresponding long ones, and e sounding as ye. J sounds as y, c as ts, ch as kh; č, š, ž, ř are respectively ch, sh, zh, rzh. Thus Jiří sounds Yeer’-zhee, Machar is Mah’-khar, Vrchlický is Virkh’-lits-kee, etc.
