The GDPR is different from the ePrivacy Directive. The EPD is responsible for cookie consent. And it has the language addressing preferences cookies.
But I see what you are saying now. That page lists the different purposes, including preference cookies (which include language preferences) and strictly necessary cookies, and I know asking consent is not necessary only for strictly necessary cookies (this page says it, I quoted that part earlier).
If that page is right, you are right and I was wrong. Thanks for persisting.
Well, that would be a shame, and that probably would explain why cd.cz makes me pick English each time I visit. I was assuming they could just save this preference in a cookie, but they obviously wouldn't be able to since I didn't provide consent, since I hide the cookie banners and they don't ask for consent later when needed.
Now, that page is not authoritative and I see it criticized here: https://www.reddit.com/r/gdpr/comments/vniefz/strictly_neces...
I guess it it safe to ask consent in doubt, but I'm not yet convinced the language cookie cannot be considered strictly necessary. How can you correctly provide a requested service to a user if you don't use a language they understand, and how storing the language is not for fulfilling an explicit request from them?
A language preference cookie is not tracking.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44426726#44431268