Hus, like all Bohemian patriots, entertained a warm affection for the national language. One of his earliest writings deals with the correct spelling of the Bohemian language, and the diacritical signs still used in Bohemian are mainly an invention of Hus. He was also strongly opposed to the introduction of foreign words into the language, and refers to this subject frequently in his "Exposition of the Ten Commandments." In that work he sharply attacks the citizens of Prague who interspersed their Bohemian speech with numerous German words, and compares them to the "Jews who had married wives of Ashdod, and whose children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod."
Hus's merits as regards the development of his language are also very great. That language had indeed already, principally by Štitný, been raised to a level that rendered it available for the exposition of theological and philosophical matters. But the style of Hus contrasts favourably with that of his predecessors by its greater facility and simplicity. This may partly be attributed to the fact that Hus, particularly during the time of his exile from Prague, associated much with the humbler classes of the people, who, knowing no language but their own, naturally spoke it very purely and without interpolations from other languages. This spoken language was adopted by Hus for his writings. He indeed himself writes at the end of the Postilla, "That he who will read (my writings) may understand my Bohemian, let him know that I have written as I usually speak."
As already stated, the bibliography of Hus is as yet very uncertain, and it is not easy to fix the exact dates of his works. It may, however, be generally stated that his earliest Bohemian writings were composed in the
