West Greenlandic
Kalaallisut
Native to	West Greenland Denmark
Ethnicity	Kalaallit
Native speakers	50,000 (2016 estimate) [1]
Language family	Eskaleut Inuit Greenlandic West Greenlandic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	kala1399
Inuit dialects. West Greenlandic in blue.

Kalaallisut, also known as West Greenlandic, is an Inuit language of the Eskimo-Aleut family that is the largest of the three major dialects of the Greenlandic language, spoken by the vast majority of the inhabitants of Greenland as it is the primary and first language of the majority of citizens, as well as by thousands of Greenlandic Inuit in Denmark proper (in total, approximately 50,000 people). ^{[2] [3]} Even as the official language of Greenland, Kalaallisut is considered to be threatened or vulnerable language by UNESCO.^{[ citation needed]}

History

Norsemen lived in Greenland for several centuries before the first contact between the Danish monarchy and Greenland. Still, there is very little evidence to show that the Vikings impacted the language. Therefore, language-in-contact only became apparent in Greenland after colonization under the Denmark-Noway-Policy. Contact with Kalaallisut is determined to fall upon 1721, during the first Danish contact and colonization period. ^[4] Through the leadership of Hans Egede, a Lutheran who was the first missionary in Greenland, Kalaallisut was the language of indoctrination (in the church and in school), thus becoming a written language. This allowed a standardization to take place where biblical narratives and religious concepts impact the different cultural settings of the Inuit.  Access to Danish was minimal and was left to the elite, but knowledge of the language was minimal before the Second World War. The lack of enforcement of Danish during Greenlandic education development gave Kalaallisut the support to continue their state of affairs in their standardized native tongue. The second half of the 19th century showed enforcement in literary rates, leading to Christian hymns to be written during this era. From 1900, Greenlandic culture began to incorporate other literary genres.

In 1953, Greenland was incorporated into Denmark, and Danish was replaced as a mother-tongue for some children, while Kalaallisut was still taught in schools. However, due to the lack of Kalaallisut speaking teachers, there was a more significant stream of Danish speakers moving to Greenland, causing young people to use Danish loanwords when speaking, creating a group of Greenlanders who had little or no experience in Kalaallisut. When Greenlandic home-rule was established, there was a push in establishing Kalaallisut as the dominant ethnic symbol that is seen today by placing importance on Kalaallisut ample enough, even while Danish had to be taught in school at substantiative levels under the law. ^[4]

With Greenlandic Self-Governance Act established in 2009, Kalaallisut became the official language. There is now no ruling of Danish within law anymore,^{[ clarification needed]} where Kalaallisut is regarded as "essential to society." ^[5]

Culture

Kalaallisut was historically spoken only in the southwestern part of Greenland, i.e., the region around Nuuk. Due to the utilization of Kalaallisut during the Danish period of colonization, there have been very few loanwords. Instead, new words were made from Inuit roots and derivatives, leaving the syntax unchanged.

Tunumiit and Inuktun are regional dialects of Greenlandic, spoken by a small minority of the population. Danish remains a vital lingua franca in Greenland and is used in many parts of public life and the primary language spoken by Danes in Greenland.

Even while this establishes Kalaallisut as the language of education and school instruction, not just in the home, higher education is conducted in Danish due to the lack of trained teachers who are sufficient in Kalaallisut and lack of academic materials. The University of Greenland teaches most classes in Danish. ^[5]

An extinct mixed trade language known as West Greenlandic Pidgin was based on West Greenlandic. ^[6]

Media

Since the 19th century, Kalaallisut has been the standard language within the high levels of media and literacy within Greenland. Writing in Greenlandic was primarily left to religious documents; however, the first newspaper, Atuagagdliutit, was published in 1861. Hinrich Johannes Rink, a Danish geologist, started the newspaper with Rasmus Berthelsen, a native Greenlander, as editor to create the initiative to strengthen Kalaallisut as a language for reading and writing. ^{[4] [5]} Media and newspapers in Kalaallisut have been well-developed institutions in Greenland; for example, the television station Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa (KNR) is the public broadcasting corporation in Greenland that produces television and radio programming in Kalaallisut and Danish. ^[5]

Orthography

Development of Orthography

Samuel Kleinschmidt, a German Moravian missionary, extensively invented and developed the grammar used for Kalaallisut from 1851 to 1973. He created the first grammar by basing it on the native language categories and constructed a phonemic and etymological orthography. He produced a dictionary and a translation of the Old Testament. However, due to the tedious nature of the writing system, mastering it was complex and problematic. Ultimately, in 1977, a new writing system was implemented, which was largely phonemic in its spelling system. This new system also adopted Roman letters to make the written form closer to the spoken form to revitalize Greenlandic, therefore completely replacing Kleinschmidt's creation. ^{[5] [7]}

Orthography

Kalaallisut has a five vowel system composed of i, e, a, o, u and thirteen consonants composed of f, g, j, k, I, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v.

As a highly synthetic language, it has complex inflection and morphology. Grammatically, Kalaallisut is similar to other Eskimo-Inuit languages. The direct impact of Danish on Kalaallisut morphology is virtually non-existent in the present day. ^[4] Therefore, through this lack of exposure, the average word length in Kalaallisut has become more extended than other languages within its language family.

Greenlandic alphabet (Kalaallisut aioa) ^[8]

Aa	Ee	Ff	Gg	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm
a	e	ef	ge	i	je	ka	el	em
Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv
en	o	pe	qaa	er	es	te	u	ve

Grammar

Phonology

In Kalaallisut, there are only a limited number of ways that a word may begin. Native words begin with either a vowel or the constant /p/, /t/, /k/, /q/, /s, /m/, or /n/. Words that have been borrowed can begin with /j/, /v/, /l/, /r/, and /f/ accordingly. ^[7] Accordingly, words can only end in a vowel or the consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, or /q/.

Single consonants have a similar pronunciation to Spanish, except that q comes to a uvular stop and r is a uvular continuant. There is no stress in Kalaallisut; the ends of words have a distinctive tone contour, not final and high pitch on the "penultimate" vowel mora or one that is a final contour with a high pitch that is antepenultimate and final vowel morae. ^[7]

Morphology

Morphology is a central part of Kalaallisut, like all other Eskimo-Inuit languages. Words in Kalaallisut usually contain more than one productive morphemes, containing the average of three of five per word; when compared to English, there is only slightly more than one. ^[7] A notable characteristic of Kalaallisut is that words can mean a whole utterance while the parts that make up the words do not.

Affixes

Affixes are notably used and are divided into four types based on whether they are added to stems or words or whether they form stems or words. ^[7]

In this chart below, the four types are presented with the members of each type within Kalaallisut:

Four Types of Affixes in Kalaallisut ^[7]

Affix Type	Added To	Produces	Approximate Number
inflectional affix	stem	word	1,000
derivational affix	stem	stem	500
clitic	word	word	12
derivational clitic	word	stem	7

Words in Kalaallisut have a branching structure, where through the affixes, each have a preceding form that form as the base of the word. For example, as cited by Jerrold M. Sadock, the word Nuummiitutullu (like one who who is in Nuuk), is sequential in how it begins with root Nuuk (town of Nuuk). Then, an inflectional suffix is added (=mi), then derivational clitics (+ik) and derivational affixes (-Tuq-), followed by inflection (=tut) and clitic (+lu) , to form a in the sequence of (nuuk=mi+ik-Tuq+tut=lu) in forming Nuummiitutullu. ^[7]

Examples

Written Examples

1. Ikuttarrappugut.

ikut-ta-rrap-pugut

hack-REP-COLL-IND.1PL

‘We, as a group, hacked.’ ^[9]

2. *ikuttartarrappugut

ikut-tar-ta-rrap-pugut

hack-REP-HAB-COLL-IND.1PL

‘We used to hack (collectively?) ^[9]

References

1. Rehrig, S. (2017). "A guide to building a diphone speech synthesis system for Kalaallisut".
2. Trondhjem, N. B. (2016). Distributive and collective aspect in Kalaallisut. Amerindia, (38), 129-144.
3. Hitomi., Csató, Éva Ágnes Otsuka, (2012). More morphologies : contributions to the Festival of Languages, Bremen, 17 Sep to 7 Oct, 2009. Univ.-Verl. Brockmeyer. ISBN 978-3-8196-0896-4. OCLC 823255916
4. "Greenlandic alphabet, pronunciation and language". omniglot.com
5. Sadock, Jerrold M. (2003). A grammar of Kalaallisut : (West Greenlandic Inuttut). München: Lincom. ISBN  3-89586-234-7. OCLC 52601989.
6. http://www.sorosoro.org/en/kalaallisut/
7. Greenlandic at Ethnologue (23rd ed., 2020)
8. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} Peter Schmitter, Sprachtheorien der Neuzeit: Sprachbeschreibung und Sprachunterricht, Narr, 2007, p. 406.
9. ^ Silvia Kouwenberg, John Victor Singler (ed.), The Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, West Sussex, p. 172.
10. Trondhjem, N. B. (2016). Distributive and collective aspect in Kalaallisut. Amerindia, (38), 129-144.

Bibliography

• Rehrig, S. (2017). "A guide to building a diphone speech synthesis system for Kalaallisut".
• Trondhjem, N. B. (2016). Distributive and collective aspect in Kalaallisut. Amerindia, (38), 129-144.
• Hitomi., Csató, Éva Ágnes Otsuka, (2012). More morphologies : contributions to the Festival of Languages, Bremen, 17 Sep to 7 Oct, 2009. Univ.-Verl. Brockmeyer. ISBN 978-3-8196-0896-4. OCLC 823255916.
• Journal of Semantics, Volume 22, Issue 4, November 2005, Pages 339–387, https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffh029
• Sadock, J. M. (2003). A grammar of Kalaallisut : (West Greenlandic Inuttut). Germany: Lincom.
• Puju, Carl Christian Olsen; Grenoble, Lenore; Frederiksen, Katti; Heins, T. J.; Sadock, Jerrold; Wong, Perry (2013-03-01). "The Kalaallisut‐English Dictionary Project".
• Grenoble, Lenore A.; McMahan, Hilary; Petrussen, Alliaq Kleist (2019-01). "An Ontology of Landscape and Seascape in Greenland: The Linguistic Encoding of Land in Kalaallisut". International Journal of American Linguistics. 85 (1): 1–43. doi:10.1086/700317. ISSN 0020-7071
• Shaer, Benjamin (2003) "Toward the tenseless analysis of a tenseless language," Semantics of Under-Represented Languages in the Americas: Vol. 2 , Article 10
• "UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger". www.unesco.org. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
• "Kalaallisut « Sorosoro". Retrieved 2021-03-12
• Trondhjem, Naja Frederikke (2009), "The marking of past time in Kalaallisut, the Greenlandic language", Typological Studies in Language, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 171–182, ISBN 978-90-272-0667-1, retrieved 2021-03-12

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