Hyphen War - Resolution

Resolution

However, on March 29, 1990, the Czechoslovak parliament resolved that the country's long name was to be spelled without a hyphen in Czech (Československá federativní republika) and with a hyphen in Slovak (Česko-slovenská federatívna republika).

This solution was found to be unsatisfactory, and less than a month later, on 20 April 1990, the parliament changed the name again, to the "Czech and Slovak Federative Republic" (Czech: Česká a Slovenská Federativní Republika, Slovak: Česká a Slovenská Federatívna Republika, or ČSFR).

The compromise required even more linguistic wrangling than first appears. Generally, only the first word of country names is capitalized in Czech and Slovak. Capitalizing all of the words eliminated the problem of whether to capitalize "Slovenská".

Although the Slovaks were demanding a hyphen (Czech, Slovak: spojovník), the Czechs called it a dash (Czech, Slovak: pomlčka). Although there is a clear difference between a hyphen and a dash in Czech and Slovak spelling (a hyphen is used to mark a connection between two words, while a dash is used in other cases), Czechs usually use the term pomlčka for both; Slovaks differentiate them. Nonetheless, English language media generally refer to the conflict as the "Hyphen War".

While the Hyphen War was not really deserving of the name "war", it demonstrated that there were differences between Czechs and Slovaks regarding the identity of their shared country. Over the following two years, more substantial disputes arose between the two halves of the federation. In 1992, Czech and Slovak politicians agreed to split the country into the two states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia—the so-called Velvet Divorce—which became effective on 1 January 1993.