Greenlandic is commonly known as ‘Kalaallisut’ in Greenlandic.
- ‘Kalaallisut’ is actually the name of the Western dialect which is the official one of Greenland.
- The other two dialects are ‘Tunumiit oraasiat’ and ‘Inuktun’.
Greenlandic is part of the Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-Aleut language family.
- More specifically, Greenlandic belongs to the subgroup of languages known as Inuit languages.
- Therefore, it is closely related to the Inuit languages of Canada and Alaska.
There are about 57,000 speakers of Greenlandic.
- About 50,000 of these are located in Greenland.
- Most of the remaining speakers live in Denmark.
Greenlandic is a SOV (subject-object-verb) type of language.
- This means that ‘I love you’ would be written as ‘I you love’ in Greenlandic word order.
- Other SOV languages include Japanese and Korean.
Fun facts
- ‘Inuit’, which in English is used to refer either the set of languages or its people, is actually the Greenlandic (official dialect) word for ‘humans’.
- Greenlandic has been the sole official language of Greenland since 2009. Previously, it shared official status with Danish.
Where can I hear/see Greenlandic in use?
Bible based videos and books: https://www.jw.org/en/publications/?contentLanguageFilter=kl
Greenlandic music:
How can I learn Greenlandic?
Introductory video:
For more resources, click here.
References
Polyglot in Progress 