Kalaallisut language
The
Kalaallisut language (also called
Greenlandic,
Greenlandic Eskimo, or
Greenlandic Inuktitut) is an
Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in
Greenland. It is closely related to some
languages in Canada, such as
Inuktitut. The language, like its relatives, is highly
polysynthetic and
ergative. There are almost no compound words, but mostly derivations. Greenland has three main dialects: North, West and East Greenlandic; West Greenlandic, the largest dialect, is called Kalaallisut. The northern dialect, Inuktun, spoken around the city of
Qaanaaq (Thule) is more closely related to Canadian Inuktitut. Kalaallisut is spoken by about 54,000 people, which is more than all the other
Eskimo-Aleut languages combined.
For a short comparison: the name
Inuktitut, when translated into Kalaallisut, is
Inuttut. One of the most famous Inuktitut words,
iglu (
house), is
illu in Kalaallisut.
Kalaallisut distinguishes two open word classes:
nouns and
verbs. Each category is subdivided by
intransitive and
transitive words. The languages distinguishes four persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd reflexive), two numbers (singular, plural; no dual as in Inuktitut), eight moods (indicative, participial, imperative, optative, past subjunctive, future subjunctive, habitual subjunctive), ten cases (absolutive, ergative, equative, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative, perlative; for some selected nouns: nominative, accusative). Verbs carry bipersonal inflection for subject and object (distinguished by person and number). Transitive nouns carry possessive inflection.
In contrast to Eskimo-Aleut languages in Canada, Kalaallisut is written with the
Latin alphabet and not with the
Inuktitut syllabary. A special character,
Kra (
), was used exclusively in Kalaallisut until a spelling reform replaced it with the letter
q.
*
The Greenland Language Council*
Greenlandic Inuktitut at Ethnologue
