- Official language in
- Greenland
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) is the official language of Greenland: Greenland's Act on Self-Government recognizes the Greenlandic language as the official language in Greenland. Together with Denmark's constitution, this Act forms Greenland's constitutional position within the Kingdom. The Act's preamble recognizes the Greenlandic people as a people under international law with a right to self-determination. Danish remains usable in public affairs, under a separate law on case processing in the public administration.
Sources
- Statsministeriet (Denmark's Prime Minister's Office) — "Grønland" — Page on Greenland's constitutional status and the official-language status of Greenlandic under the Self-Government Act
Script & pronunciation
The Kalaallisut alphabet consists of the Latin letters, several of which were formerly written with accents. A spelling reform abolished use of these accented letters, along with a separate letter formerly written K' or ĸ ("kra"); that position in the alphabet is now written with Q. This app's cards use this modern spelling: the letter q appears in words such as Qujanaq ("thank you").
Sources
- Everson, Michael (2001). "Greenlandic / kalaallisut." The Alphabets of Europe — Alphabet chart and note on the 1973 spelling reform
Grammar essentials
Kalaallisut is a polysynthetic language: a verb is built from a stem, an optional chain of derivational affixes, and then an inflectional ending that marks mood together with the person and number of the subject — all inside a single word. Descriptions of the language's grammar count a large inventory of such derivational affixes, all of them optional, added to the stem one after another. This app's cards illustrate the pattern: inniminniiniarpunga ("I would like to book") is built from inniminniivoq ("books, reserves") plus the intentional affix -niar- plus the first-person-singular ending -punga, and this app's card for "hello" describes Greenlandic as a language in which single words can express entire sentences. Negation, too, is marked inside the verb rather than by a separate word: tikinngillat ("have not arrived") inserts -nngit-/-nngil- into tikippoq ("has arrived").
Sources
- Trondhjem, Naja Frederikke (2009). "Marking of past time in Kalaallisut, the Greenlandic language." In Mahieu, Marc-Antoine & Tersis, Nicole (eds.), Variations on Polysynthesis: The Eskaleut Languages, John Benjamins — Polysynthesis formula (stem + derivational affix(es) + inflection) and the mood-paradigm description
Politeness & etiquette
Descriptions of Kalaallisut grammar identify a dedicated imperative mood, marked directly on the verb for person and number, among the language's set of moods. This app's cards show a command being softened into a request by inserting the suffix -niar- before the ending: Utaqqiniarit ("please wait") adds -niar- before the ending -it, which marks a second-person-singular command, and qiorniarpakka ("please cut them") softens qiorpaa ("clips it, cuts into it") the same way. A prohibition ("don't") is instead formed with -na- on the stem, as in the same card's annertuumik qiornagit ("do not cut them a lot"). This app's card for "please" likewise notes that Kalaallisut has no separate word for it; a request is softened this way instead.
Sources
- Trondhjem, Naja Frederikke (2009). "Marking of past time in Kalaallisut, the Greenlandic language." In Mahieu, Marc-Antoine & Tersis, Nicole (eds.), Variations on Polysynthesis: The Eskaleut Languages, John Benjamins — Mood-paradigm description (indicative, interrogative, imperative, optative; person and number)