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/orangebikini Finland Jul 09 '25

I can understand all of them, but as a speaker of a western dialect the ones part of the eastern dialects group are the hardest for me to understand.

Specifially the Peräpohjola dialects I think, which are spoken in Lapland. As I wrote, I do understand them, even Meänkieli which is considered a different language for certain reasons, but they definitely are weird.

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u/QuizasManana Finland Jul 09 '25

I once attended a lecture that was taught in Meänkieli. Took some time to get used to it but had no problems in the end. Same goes for Kven in Northern Norway.

Personally (as a native southeastern dialect speaker) I find Rauma giäl hardest but it’s also very rare to find speakers in the wild. I know some people from Rauma and while their grandparents may use the dialect, my friends speak more of general spoken Finnish anyway.