What's in a Prague street name

Every street in Prague, one by one.


Prague 4, day 159: Ke Hlásce

Ke Hlásce was named in the 1930s.

Type ‘hláska’ into most translation tools, and they’ll start telling you about a phone. However, they’re not talking about a telephone – in this sense, a ‘phone’ is any distinct speech sound. As in phonetics, phonemes, homophones, and so on.

However, a ‘hláska’ is also a watchtower, usually found as part of the fortifications of a medieval town. It can also be used to describe a traffic control station on a railway line, or, when called an ‘SOS hláska’, it’s an emergency (public) telephone).

Here’s a picture I took from a, erm, Great watchtower in February of this year.

There’s a house at the top of this street (back in Podolí, not Beijing) that overlooks the surrounding valley – hence the area once being known as Hláska, and this street leading to the watchtower (Ke Hlásce).



2 responses to “Prague 4, day 159: Ke Hlásce”

  1. joyful602013f842 avatar
    joyful602013f842

    Hello Ed,

    Thanks for all the work you put into this idea. I’ve been getting your regular posts by email for some time now and always find them fascinating. They (sort of) help me with my bad Czech from time to time too.

    Great photo from the Great Wall yesterday which took me back to October 1988 when I also walked on the wall. Things were very different in China then…

    Keep up the good work!

    Philip Selbie U Půjčovny 952/2 Praha 1

    Like

    1. Hi Philip, thanks so much! Great to hear these are still getting an audience.

      Like

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