Greenlandic language
Greenlandic (kalaallisut ; grønlandsk ) is an Eskimo–Aleut language with about 56,000 speakers, mostly Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland. It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuktitut. It is the most widely spoken Eskimo–Aleut language.
Greenlandic has been the sole official language of the Greenlandic autonomous territory since June 2009, which is a move by the Naalakkersuisut, the government of Greenland, to strengthen the language in its competition with the colonial language, Danish. The main variety is Kalaallisut, or West Greenlandic. The second variety is Tunumiit oraasiat, or East Greenlandic. The language of the Thule Inuit of Greenland, Inuktun or Polar Eskimo, is a recent arrival and a dialect of Inuktitut.
Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots and suffixes. The language's morphosyntactic alignment is ergative, treating both the argument (subject) of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb in one way, but the subject of a transitive verb in another. For example, "he plays the guitar" would be in the ergative case as a transitive agent, whereas "I bought a guitar" and "as the guitar plays" (the latter being the intransive sense of the same verb "to play") would both be in the absolutive case.
Nouns are inflected by one of eight cases and for possession. Verbs are inflected for one of eight moods and for the number and person of its subject and object. Both nouns and verbs have complex derivational morphology. The basic word order in transitive clauses is subject–object–verb. The subordination of clauses uses special subordinate moods. A so-called fourth-person category enables switch-reference between main clauses and subordinate clauses with different subjects.
Greenlandic is notable for its lack of system of grammatical tense; and temporal relations are expressed normally by context but also by the use of temporal particles such as "yesterday" or "now" or sometimes by the use of derivational suffixes or the combination of affixes with aspectual meanings with the semantic lexical aspect of different verbs. However, some linguists have suggested that Greenlandic always marks future tense.
Another question is whether the language has noun incorporation or whether the processes that create complex predicates that include nominal roots are derivational in nature.
When adopting new concepts or technologies, Greenlandic usually constructs new words made from Greenlandic roots, but modern Greenlandic has also taken many loans from Danish and English. The language has been written in Latin script since Danish colonization began in the 1700s. Greenlandic's first orthography was developed by Samuel Kleinschmidt in 1851, but within 100 years, it already differed substantially from the spoken language because of a number of sound changes. An extensive orthographic reform was undertaken in 1973 and made the script much easier to learn. This resulted in a boost in Greenlandic literacy, which is now among the highest in the world.
Greenlandic was brought to Greenland by the arrival of the Thule people in the 1200s. The languages that were spoken by the earlier Saqqaq and Dorset cultures in Greenland are unknown.
The first descriptions of Greenlandic date from the 1600s. With the arrival of Danish missionaries in the early 1700s and the beginning of Danish colonization of Greenland, the compilation of dictionaries and description of grammar began. The missionary Paul Egede wrote the first Greenlandic dictionary in 1750 and the first grammar in 1760.
From the Danish colonization in the 1700s to the beginning of Greenlandic home rule in 1979, Greenlandic experienced increasing pressure from the Danish language. In the 1950s, Denmark's linguistic policies were directed at strengthening Danish. Of primary significance was the fact that post-primary education and official functions were conducted in Danish.
Greenlandic has been the sole official language of the Greenlandic autonomous territory since June 2009, which is a move by the Naalakkersuisut, the government of Greenland, to strengthen the language in its competition with the colonial language, Danish. The main variety is Kalaallisut, or West Greenlandic. The second variety is Tunumiit oraasiat, or East Greenlandic. The language of the Thule Inuit of Greenland, Inuktun or Polar Eskimo, is a recent arrival and a dialect of Inuktitut.
Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots and suffixes. The language's morphosyntactic alignment is ergative, treating both the argument (subject) of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb in one way, but the subject of a transitive verb in another. For example, "he plays the guitar" would be in the ergative case as a transitive agent, whereas "I bought a guitar" and "as the guitar plays" (the latter being the intransive sense of the same verb "to play") would both be in the absolutive case.
Nouns are inflected by one of eight cases and for possession. Verbs are inflected for one of eight moods and for the number and person of its subject and object. Both nouns and verbs have complex derivational morphology. The basic word order in transitive clauses is subject–object–verb. The subordination of clauses uses special subordinate moods. A so-called fourth-person category enables switch-reference between main clauses and subordinate clauses with different subjects.
Greenlandic is notable for its lack of system of grammatical tense; and temporal relations are expressed normally by context but also by the use of temporal particles such as "yesterday" or "now" or sometimes by the use of derivational suffixes or the combination of affixes with aspectual meanings with the semantic lexical aspect of different verbs. However, some linguists have suggested that Greenlandic always marks future tense.
Another question is whether the language has noun incorporation or whether the processes that create complex predicates that include nominal roots are derivational in nature.
When adopting new concepts or technologies, Greenlandic usually constructs new words made from Greenlandic roots, but modern Greenlandic has also taken many loans from Danish and English. The language has been written in Latin script since Danish colonization began in the 1700s. Greenlandic's first orthography was developed by Samuel Kleinschmidt in 1851, but within 100 years, it already differed substantially from the spoken language because of a number of sound changes. An extensive orthographic reform was undertaken in 1973 and made the script much easier to learn. This resulted in a boost in Greenlandic literacy, which is now among the highest in the world.
Greenlandic was brought to Greenland by the arrival of the Thule people in the 1200s. The languages that were spoken by the earlier Saqqaq and Dorset cultures in Greenland are unknown.
The first descriptions of Greenlandic date from the 1600s. With the arrival of Danish missionaries in the early 1700s and the beginning of Danish colonization of Greenland, the compilation of dictionaries and description of grammar began. The missionary Paul Egede wrote the first Greenlandic dictionary in 1750 and the first grammar in 1760.
From the Danish colonization in the 1700s to the beginning of Greenlandic home rule in 1979, Greenlandic experienced increasing pressure from the Danish language. In the 1950s, Denmark's linguistic policies were directed at strengthening Danish. Of primary significance was the fact that post-primary education and official functions were conducted in Danish.
Country
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Greenland
Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat, ; Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is the world's largest island. It is one of three countries that form the Kingdom of Denmark, the others being Denmark and the Faroe Islands; the citizens of all these countries are citizens of Denmark and of the European Union. The capital of Greenland is Nuuk.
Though a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and Denmark, the colonial powers) for more than a millennium, beginning in 986. Greenland has been inhabited at intervals over at least the last 4,500 years by Arctic peoples whose forebears migrated there from what is now Canada. Norsemen settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland beginning in the 10th century, having previously settled Iceland. Inuit arrived in the 13th century. Though under continuous influence of Norway and Norwegians, Greenland was not formally under the Norwegian crown until 1261. The Norse colonies disappeared in the late 15th century, after Norway was hit by the Black Death and entered a severe decline.