This paper presents the results of our research. Its aim was to explore the wide field of understanding archaisms or rare expressions by 11 to 15-year-old school-age children. For this purpose, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to several Czech elementary and secondary/high schools owing to the help and co-operation of six local teachers. The data obtained by the questionnaire were qualitatively analyzed and interpreted in terms of the strategies our respondents used to understand the unfamiliar or less familiar words. The issue of reading comprehension was also touched upon. At the same time, quantitative aspects of the relation between the level of understanding and certain variables, namely the age and gender of the respondents, were revealed.

Problem of Archaism and Innovation in the Eastern Iranian Languages The presented dissertation aims to bring new information concerning the classification of the Eastern Iranian languages. Instead of commonly accepted two branches of Eastern Iranian (Northern and Southern) it seems that there can be classified at least five branches of Eastern Iranian languages, moreover, Avestan can form its own branch, which possibly may include also Khwārezmian. The main issue of the presented thesis was to show archaisms and innovations of the language group in focus. Such task is an issue for numerous studies so the main attention was paid to historical development of Sogdian and Yaghnōbī - two closely related Eastern Iranian languages. Linguistic proximity of Sogdian and Yaghnōbī has been observed shortly after discoveries of the first Sogdian documents in Chinese Turkestan on the beginning of the 20 th century, for a long time it has been supposed that Yaghnōbī is a modern descendent of Sogdian. By analysis of phonology, grammar and vocabulary of both languages I tried to find clues that may answer this question. From diachronic view there is no much difference between Sogdian and Yaghnōbī, individual changes may be interpreted as "dialectal", but there is one phenomenon that influenced different...