Rules of The Eurovision Song Contest - Dialects and Regional Languages

Dialects and Regional Languages

On some occasions, dialects of a language or a very rare language have been used in a song entry:

• 1971, 1996, 2003 & 2012 - Austria sang in various dialects of German
• 1972 – Ireland sang in Irish, one of the two official languages of Ireland
• 1982 – Germany sang in German but after winning performed the reprise in four different languages: German, English, French and Dutch
• 1989 – Switzerland sang in Romansh, the fourth language of Switzerland
• 1990 and 2012 – Finland sang in Swedish, which only a minority of 5% speak in Finland.
• 1991 – Italy sang in Neapolitan, a dialect of Italian
• 1992, 1993, 1996 and 2011 – France sang in the languages of Creole (1992), Corsican (1993 and 2011) and Breton (1996).
• 1999 – Lithuania sang in Samogitian, a dialect of Lithuanian
• 2004 – Estonia sang in Võro, which is considered by some to be a dialect of Estonian, and others, a separate language
• 2003, 2006 and 2008 – In 2003, Belgium's Urban Trad sang "Sanomi" in a completely made-up language, while the Dutch participants in 2006, Treble, sang half of their song "Amambanda" in a fictional language. In 2008, Ishtar performed their song, "O Julissi" in a fictional language as well.
• 2006 - Monaco sang partially in Tahitian.
• 2009 - The Czech Republic sang partially in Romani, the language of the Romani people.
• 2012 - Most of the lyrics of Russia's entry were in the Udmurt language (which, alongside Russian, is the official language in Udmurtia).