Aimed to avoid further confusion over the complete name and its shorter version, Czech leaders have proposed an official shortcut called Czechia. The name has brought debates against and in favor, but many politicians actually support the proposition.
If the name passes, Czechia will be used as a shorter version of the complete name: Czech Republic, which will remain mandatory in official documents. The name will have to be notified to the United Nations geographical names database so it can be added to the official list.
The central European state has had an unusual behavior among other countries for not designating a short-form when it was formed, after the breakup with Czechoslovakia in 1993, as reported by The Washington Post.
“It is not good when a country does not have any clearly defined symbols, or cannot say clearly what its name is,” said Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek while he proposed the new short version. “It would be good to set the record straight once and for all. We owe this to ourselves and to the world,” he added.
Zaoralek hoped that the name Czechia would be added on athletes’ jerseys at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro due to begin this summer, however, the uniforms had already been designed by the time of the proposal with the name Czech Republic, according to The New York Times.
The civic initiative
Czechia was a civic initiative founded in 1997 aimed to promote the use of the word. English speakers were, or actually still are, not clear in how to refer the country using a shorter version of the official name, which has made them called the country as they wished.
The short name Czechia now has a Facebook page with thousands of followers that currently support the use of the word, and also, answer questions about its use. The campaign also argues that the long version has hampered the nation and that the “transparency and relative simplicity” of the short country name will facilitate its international acceptance.
Source: The New York Times