This year, the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest featured a record breaking twenty languages. Eurovision Ireland will be looking at all the languages that have been performed at the Contest, since 1956, in our latest #AtoZ. Today, we continue the series with Pontic Greek, Portuguese and Proto-Slavic.

Pontic Greek

Pontic Greek is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia and the Eastern Turkish and Caucasus region. An endangered Greek language variety, Pontic Greek is spoken by about 778,000 people worldwide, who are known as Pontic or Pontian Greeks.

Pontic Greek appeared within lines of “Utopian Land”, the Greek entry for the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. Argo performed “Utopian Land”, finishing in 16th place in the semi final, with 44 points.

Portuguese

Portuguese is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family originating from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is spoken chiefly in Brazil, Portugal, and several countries in Africa, as well as by immigrants in North America, Europe, and South America. With approximately 267 million speakers, it is listed as the fifth-most spoken native language.

Portuguese appeared in full, within “Oração”, the Portuguese entry for the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest. António Calvário performed “Oração”, finishing in 13th place with 0 points.

Proto-Slavic

Proto-Slavic is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; scholars have reconstructed the language by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic languages and by taking into account other Indo-European languages.

Proto-Slavic appeared within phrases of “Gaja”, the Polish entry for the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest. Justyna Steczkowska performed “Gaja”, finishing in 14th place with 156 points.

Let us know what you think about the Eurovision Song Contest – either in the comments below or on our FACEBOOK, BLUESKY, TWITTER, YOUTUBE, INSTAGRAM and TIKTOK pages.

The Eurovision Community, which Eurovision Ireland are a part of, celebrates diversity through music. Please keep your comments respectful. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, body-shaming or any other derogatory or hostile language.

Author: Richard Taylor

Source: Eurovision Ireland, Wikipedia & YouTube/EBU/ESC:56-73