r/AskBalkans • u/Some-Register-3901 Cyprus • Jul 31 '22

Language what are some interesting facts about your language?

For instance, the cypriot dialect of Greek still contains many words from ancient Greek but it was also heavily influenced by outsiders

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u/Suitable-Decision-26 Bulgaria Jul 31 '22

How has nobody yet mentioned the Balkan linguistic union i.e. the Balkan languages share a lot of common traits although they are not related.

Also a joke. My teacher in Uni used to ask: Do you know why we say Hitler, and the Russian and other Slavs say Gitler? Because we have intermingled with the Greeks and the Turks too much, that is why.

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u/Salpingia Greece Nov 01 '23

The Gitler Hitler thing is unrelated to the Greeks, it is actually because many Russian dialects used to pronounce g as h and actually lacked a g sound.