Czech census found fewer people listing Romanes as their mother tongue than a decade ago
During the 2021 census, 28 102 inhabitants of the Czech Republic listed the Romanes language as their mother tongue, either alone or in combination with other languages. Data on the composition of the population according to mother tongue has been published by the Czech Statistical Office as another thematic group of census results.
As in the case of nationality, one or two mother tongues could be declared during the census. Almost 260 000 people listed more than one mother tongue on the census form.
The data is available for all territorial units up to the level of municipalities and city districts or precincts. Just 4 280 inhabitants listed Romanes as their only mother tongue.
Another 23 822 people listed it as one of their two mother tongues. For almost nine million inhabitants, Czech was the only mother tongue listed, while another 217 500 listed it together with another mother tongue.
The other most commonly mentioned mother tongues were Slovak and Ukrainian. In Slovakia, 100 526 people listed Romanes as their mother tongue during the census.
During the Czech census in 2011, 4 919 people listed Romanes as their sole mother tongue, while 33 351 people listed both the Czech and Romanes languages as their mother tongues and 5 787 inhabitants listed Romanes and Slovak as their mother tongues. During the Czech 2001 census, 23 211 inhabitants listed Romanes as their mother tongue, and in 1991, 24 294 people did so.
The Czech census of 2011 did not report all combinations of Romanes as a mother tongue with other languages. In our previous reporting on the 2021 census, news server Romea.cz found a total of 21 691 inhabitants listed their nationality as Romani.
Just 4 458 of those persons listed only a Romani nationality. Most listed it in combination with other nationalities, such as Czech and Romani, Moravian and Romani, etc. (17 233 people).
These first findings of the 2021 census were published by the Czech Statistical Office on 27 May 2022. The census was held last year between 27 March and 11 May.
