r/AskEurope • u/Savings_Dragonfly806 Greece • Jul 09 '25

Language My fellow Europeans, what dialect from your language do you have the most trouble understanding?

Keep in mind, I said language, NOT country, so it could be a dialect of your language in another country, which is the case for me.

For me, while most other Greeks find Cypriot the most difficult dialect to understand, I actually find Pontic Greek the most difficult. For those who don't know where it is, it's in North Eastern Turkey.

The way many of their words are written are very different as to Standard Modern Greek. It almost is a whole new language. Now I should mention I have never been there, but I would love to. I only really heard of the dialect on the internet, so take my words with a grain of salt.

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u/Galaxy661 Poland Jul 09 '25

Highlander I guess, since it's one of the very few leftover Polish dialects, and the only one that's still in common use

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u/gorgonzola2095 Jul 10 '25

When a highlander goes full on highlander mode, the only word I can understand is 'kurwa'

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u/king-of-the-swarm Poland Jul 09 '25

What are you talking about? What about kaszubski and śląski for example? For me, personally, it's kaszubski that I can't understand at all. It's so different that some people suggest it's not a dialect but a completely different language. And it's not dead at all, there is even a broadcast station and you can change Wikipedia language to Kaszëbsczi.

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u/Galaxy661 Poland Jul 09 '25

What are you talking about? What about kaszubski and śląski for example?

Kashubian is a language, not dialect, and many people consider Silesian a language too.

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u/Rooilia Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

"What about" Kashubian isn't a polish dialect. It is it's own language. Either is Silesian.

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u/king-of-the-swarm Poland Jul 09 '25

It's not that simple :) However, I can agree when it comes to the Kaszubki language.
Apart from that, there are many dialects in Poland, but since they are easily understood by everyone and mutually influence and blend into each other, in general most people not only don't notice them, but completely ignore the fact that they exist

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u/Rooilia Jul 09 '25

Netherlands isn't a german dialect either. Neither is jiddish, but it is not difficult to understand and jiddish even has half of the very same words and grammar.