I asked my father, a native Czech speaker to explain what Robata means. Pasting his reply below. First, linguistically speaking: it's a Slavic language work, w

I asked my father, a native Czech speaker to explain what Robata means. Pasting his reply below. First, linguistically speaking: it's a Slavic language work, which broadly means "work". For example, the Russian word for "work" is "rabota". The Czech for work is "prace" but in slang usage one could say "robota" to signify hard work (e.g. "Musim do roboty"; "Ceka na me robota") Historically: in the middle ages peasants had to spend a day each week working for the local lord on his field--this obligation was called "robota". Karel Capek wrote a sci-fi play called R.U.R. where the word "robot" is used for the first time (it was suggested by Capek's brother Josef.) R.U.R. stands for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots, a phrase that has been used as a subtitle in English). It premiered on 25 January 1921 and introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole. R.U.R. quickly became influential after its publication. Original language: Czech Date premiered: 25 January 1921 Written by: Karel Čapek Genre: Science fiction