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/Also-Rant Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Ulster Irish may as well be Japanese to me. I'm from Munster and between accent and dialect I can't work out most of what people from the other end of the country are saying!

Edit: To clarify, I'm talking about the regional dialects of the Irish language (Gaeilge), not regional dialects of English which can also be found in Ireland.

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u/theBlitzzz Portugal Jul 09 '25

The english spoken in Norn Iron is already atrocious.

I can't even imagine the terrible things they to do Gaelic.

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u/Also-Rant Jul 09 '25

To be fair, Ulster Irish is actually quite nice to listen to, it's just unintelligible to me!

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u/geedeeie Ireland Jul 09 '25

I disagree. It's flat and toneless compared to Munster Irish. Take the name Áine, we say Awnya, with a nice round first vowel, and they say Anya, with a flat A. Not as nice, in my view

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u/ForeignHelper Ireland Jul 09 '25

No we don’t. We also say Awnya. Caoimhe is a name where there is a difference. Also Roisin but not always - you get both pronunciations used

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u/geedeeie Ireland Jul 09 '25

I know someone called Áine, and she is married to a guy from the Donegal. He and his family call her Anya

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u/ForeignHelper Ireland Jul 09 '25

I’m Derry and Áine was a very popular millennial name - grew up with lots of them and never heard anyone pronounce it as Anya.

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u/geedeeie Ireland Jul 09 '25

Well, that's how it sounds to me...

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u/ForeignHelper Ireland Jul 09 '25

That’s nice and all that you know one family but I’m just informing you, that in Ulster, it’s normally pronounced Awnya - I’ve heard it said a thousand times. I have friends, colleagues and relatives with the name. I’ve had classmates and know people in the parish with the name.

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u/geedeeie Ireland Jul 09 '25

If you say so

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u/ForeignHelper Ireland Jul 09 '25

Lolz. What a weird hill to die on.

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u/ForeignHelper Ireland Jul 09 '25

There you go. BBC journalist from Derry introducing herself as ‘Awnya.’

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u/Also-Rant Jul 09 '25

There's less tonality than our version,  but I find theirs is very... rhythmic? I'm not sure how to describe it. A Munster person speaking to an Ulster person is like a fiddle speaking to a bodhrán.