Greece

Balkan Turkish

also: Rumelice

The Turkish varieties of the Balkans, surviving from Ottoman-era settlement. Spoken across pockets of Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and northern Greece.

Standard Modern Greek

also: Demotic Greek

The Athens-based standard of modern Greek, derived from the Demotic vernacular and codified in the late 20th century.

Cretan Greek

The Greek of Crete. The literary medium of the late-medieval Cretan Renaissance and the basis of a long oral and musical tradition.

Pontic Greek

also: Romeyka, Pontiaka

The Greek variety historically spoken along the Pontic coast of the Black Sea, brought to mainland Greece by refugees of the 1923 population exchange. Its Anatolian-resident form (Romeyka) survives among Muslim communities near Trabzon.

Tsakonian

also: Tsakonika

The only living descendant of ancient Doric Greek, spoken in a few villages of the Peloponnese around Leonidio. Critically endangered; structurally distinct from all other Greek varieties, which descend from Attic-Ionic.

Cappadocian Greek

The Greek of inner Anatolia, isolated for centuries before the 1923 population exchange brought its speakers to Greece. Heavily Turkic-influenced; once thought extinct but rediscovered in central Greece in the 2000s.

Aromanian

also: Arumun, Vlach

An Eastern Romance variety spoken across the southern Balkans. Often classified as a separate language; carries significant contact influence from Greek, Albanian, and Slavic.