This paper uses longitudinal research of a linguistic ethnographic nature with four young women of Pontian Greek descent who migrated to Greece, from Russia and Georgia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and who speak Standardised Modern Greek and the non-standard variety of Pontian Greek. The paper centers on how the young women navigated the different ideologies about ‘language’, nationhood and heritage that they met in diverse domains of their lives. The research presented here lies at the interface between research on language ideologies and research on multilingualism and modern diversities.