Why do I need to configure the SQL dialect of a data source?

Question

When we configure a data source using Hibernate, we should add the hibernate.dialect property (or eclipselink.target-database if you are using Ecli

Answer 1

A dialect is a form of the language that is spoken by a particular group of people.

Here, in context of hibernate framework, When hibernate wants to talk(using queries) with the database it uses dialects.

The SQL dialect's are derived from the Structured Query Language which uses human-readable expressions to define query statements.
A hibernate dialect gives information to the framework of how to convert hibernate queries(HQL) into native SQL queries.

The dialect of hibernate can be configured using below property:

hibernate.dialect

Here, is a complete list of hibernate dialects.

Note: The dialect property of hibernate is not mandatory.