Greenlandic language

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Greenlandic
Kalaallisut
Spoken in	Greenland, Kingdom of Denmark
Region	North America
Total speakers	approximately 50,000
Language family	Eskimo-Aleut Eskimo Inuit Greenlandic
Official status
Official language in	Greenland[1]
Regulated by	Oqaasileriffik (The Greenland Language Secretariat) ([7])
Language codes
ISO 639-1	kl
ISO 639-2	kal
ISO 639-3	kal
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Greenlandic language is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken by about 54,000 people in Greenland. It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada, such as Inuktitut. The main dialect Kalaallisut or West Greenlandic is the official language of the Greelandic autonomous territory since june 2009. Other dialects are East Greenlandic (Tunumiisut) and the Thule dialect Inuktun. Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language allowing the creation of long words by stringing together roots and suffixes. Its morphosyntactic alignment is ergative. Nouns are inflected for one of the 8 cases and for possession. Verbs are inflected for one of the 8 moods and for the number and person of its subject and object. Both nouns ad verbs have complex derivational morphology. The language is written in the Latin script and underwent an extensive orthographic reform in 1973. It is an ongoing debate in linguistics whether Greenlandic has grammatical tense or not; several linguists regard the language as being esssentially tenseless. Another open question is whether the language has Noun incorporation or whether the processes that create complex predicates including nominal roots are rather derivational in nature. Basic word order in transitive clauses is Subject Object Verb.

Contents 1 History 2 Classification 3 Phonology 3.1 Vowels 3.2 Consonants 3.3 Prosody 3.4 Morphophonology 4 Grammar 4.1 Nouns 4.1.1 Pronominal system 4.1.2 Case and grammatical relations 4.1.3 Possession 4.2 Verbs 4.2.1 Inflection 4.2.2 Derivation 4.2.3 Tense 4.2.4 Noun Incorporation 4.3 Syntax 4.3.1 Coordination and Subordination 5 Vocabulary 6 Orthography 6.1 Sample Text 7 See also 8 Notes 9 Further reading 10 External links

[edit] History

The Greenlandic language came to Greenland with the arrival of the Thule culture in the 13th century. It is unknown what languages were spoken by the earlier Saqqaq and Dorset cultures.

The first descriptions of Greenlandic date to the 17th century, and with the arrival of Danish missionaries in the early 18th century the elaboration of dictionaries and grammar description began in earnest. The first dictionary dates to 1750 and the first grammar to 1760, both written by Paul Egede.^[2]

From the time of the Danish colonization of Greenland in the 18th century to the beginning of Greenlandic homerule in 1979 Greenlandic experienced increasing pressure from the Danish language. Especially in the 1950'es Danish linguistic policies in Greenland were aimed at the replacement of Greenlandic with Danish in Greenlandic society. Of great significance has been the fact that all post primary education was conducted in Danish and that Danish was the language of government.^[3]

From 1851 to 1973 Greenlandic was written in a complicated orthography devised by the missionary linguist Samuel Kleinschmidt, but in 1973 a new orthography was introduced, intended to bring the written language closer to the spoken standard, which had changed considerably since Kleinschmidt's times. The reform was effective and in the years following the reform Greenlandic literacy received a boost.^[3]

Since 1979 a Greenlandic policy of "greenlandization" has reversed that trend, and monolingual Danish speaking parents in Greenland are now raising bilingual-Danish/Greenlandic speaking children, thanks to a Greenlandic only policy in primary schooling.^[4]

Before June 2009, Greenlandic shared its status as the official language in Greenland with Danish.^[5] Since then, Greenlandic has become the sole official language.^[1] This has made Greenlandic a unique example of an indigenous language of the Americas that serves exclusively as an official language of a semi-independent country, yet it is still considered to be in a "vulnerable" state by the UNESCO Red Book of Language Endangerment^[6]. Carl Christian Olsen, founder of the Oqaasileriffik (The Greenland Language Secretariat), has been credited with an important role in revitalizing and promoting the language as the official tongue.^[7] The country has a 100% literacy rate.^[8]

[edit] Classification

Kalaallisut and the other Greenlandic dialects belong to the Eskimo-Aleut family and are closely related to the Inuit languages of Canada and Alaska. Illustration 1. shows the locations of the different Eskimoan languages, among them the three main dialects of Greenlandic.

1. Example of differences
between the 3 main dialects

English	Kalaallisut	Inuktun	Tunumiisut
humans	inuit	inughuit[9]	iivit[10]

The most prominent Greenlandic dialect is Western Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), which is the official language of Greenland. The name Kalaallisut is now often used as a cover term for all of Greenlandic. The northern dialect, Inuktun (Avanersuarmiutut), spoken around the city of Qaanaaq (Thule) is particularly closely related to Canadian Inuktitut. The Eastern dialects (Tunumiit oraasiat), is spoken around the towns of Ammassalik and Scoresbysund, and is the most innovative of the Greenlandic dialects, having assimilated consonant culsters and vowel sequences even further than West Greenlandic.^[11] Kalaallisut is further subdivided into four subdialects: one spoken arund Upernavik which has certain similarities to Eastern Greenlandic possibly because of a previous migration from eastern Greenland. Another dialect around Uummannaq and the Disko Bay. The central dialect is spoken from Sisimiut in the north, around Nuuk and as far south as Maniitsoq. Southern Kalaallisut is spoken around Narsaq and Qaqortoq in the south.^[2] Table 1. shows the differences in the pronunciation of the word for "humans" in the three main dialects. It can be seen that Inuktun is the most conservative, and Tunumiisut the most innovative.

Michael Fortescue, a specialist in Eskimo-Aleut as well as in Chukotko-Kamchatkan, argues for a link between Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo-Aleut in Language Relations Across Bering Strait (1998). He calls this proposed grouping Uralo-Siberian.

[edit] Phonology

The Kalaallisut syllable is simple, allowing syllables of (C)(V)V(C), where C is a consonant and V is a vowel and VV is a double vowel or wordfinal /ai/.^[12] Consonant clusters only occur over syllable boundaries and their pronunciation is subject to a series of assimilations. In this section letters between slashes // mean phonemic transcription, letters in square brackets mean phonetic transcription and letters in triangular brackets <> mean orthographic rendering.^[13]

[edit] Vowels

Greenlandic' three vowel system, composed of /i/, /u/ and /a/, is typical for an Eskimo-Aleout language.

Before an uvular consonant ([q] or [ʁ]) /i/ is realized allophonically as [e] or [ɛ] and /u/ as [o] or [ɔ]. This alternation is shown in the modern standard orthography by writing /i/ and /u/ as <e> and <o> respectively when occurring before uvulars (<q> and <r>).^[14] For example:

/ui/ "husband" pronounced [ui].

/uiqarpuq/ "she has a husband" pronounced [ueqaʁpɔq] and written <ueqarpoq>.

/illu/ "house" pronounced [iɫ:u].

/illuqarpuq/ "he has a house" pronounced [iɫ:oqaʁpɔq] and written <illoqarpoq>.

Double vowels are pronounced as two moras, so they are phonologically a vowel sequence and not a long vowel; they are also written as two vowels in the orthography. The only diphtong in the language is /ai/ which only occurs at the end of words.

[edit] Consonants

Greenlandic has consonants at five different points of articulation: labial, alveolar, palatal, velar and uvular. It does not have a phonemic voicing contrast, but rather distinguishes plain stops from fricatives. It distinguishes stops, fricatives and nasals at the labial, alveolar, velar and uvular points of articulation. The palatal sibilant [ʃ] has merged with [s] in all but a few dialects. The labiodental fricative [f] is only contrastive in loanwords. The alveolar stop [t] is pronounced as an affricate [t͡s] before the high front vowel /i/. Often Danish loanwords are written with Danish letters for voiced stops <b d g>, for example <baaja> "beer" and <Guuti> "God" but in Greenlandic these stops are pronounced exactly as if they began with /p t k/ i.e. [pa:ja] and [ku:t^si].^[2]

2. Consonants of Kalaallisut

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Stops	/p/ - <p>	/t/ - <t>		/k/ - <k>	/q/ - <q>
Fricatives	/v/ - <v> [15]	/s/ - <s>	/ʃ/*	/ɣ/ - <g>	/ʁ/ - <r>
Nasals	/m/ - <m>	/n/ - <n>		/ŋ/ -  <ng>	/ɴ/ -  <rn>
Liquids		/l/ - <l> ~ [ɬ] -  <ll>
Semivowel			/j/ - <j>

*Only found in some local dialects, not in the standard language.

[edit] Prosody

Greenlandic prosody does not include stress as an autonomous category, instead prosody is determined by tonal and durational parameters.^[16] Intonation is influenced by syllable weight: heavy syllables are pronounced in a way that may be perceived as stress. Heavy syllables include syllables with long vowels and syllables before consonant clusters. In words without long vowels or consonant clusters the antepenultimate syllable is stressed. In words with less than four syllables without long vowels or consonant clusters, the last syllable is stressed. In words with many heavy syllables, syllables with long vowels are considered heavier than syllables before a consonant cluster. ^[17]

Intonantion in indicative clauses usually rises on the antepenultimate syllable, falls on the penult and rises on the last syllable. Interrogative intonation rises on the penultimate and falls on the last syllable.^[18][17]

[edit] Morphophonology

Greenlandic phonology distinguishes itself phonologically from the other Inuit languages by a series of assimilations.

Greenlandic phonology allows clusters, but it does not allow clusters of two different consonants unless the first one is /r/. The second consonant in a cluster is always assimilated to the first one resulting in a geminate consonant. Geminate /tt/ is pronounced [ts] and written <ts>. Geminate /ll/ is pronounced [ɫː], /l/ is also devoiced to [ɫ] after r. Geminate /gg/ is pronounced [çː]. Geminate /vv/ is pronounced [fː] and written <ff>. /v/ is also pronounced and written as [f] after r.^[19]

These assimilations mean that one of the most famous Inuktitut words, iglu ("house"), is illu in Greenlandic, where the /gl/ consonant cluster of Inuktitut is assimilated into an unvoiced lateral affricate. And that the word Inuktitut itself, when translated into Kalaallisut, is Inuttut, for example. Similarly, the Old Greenlandic diphtong /au/ has become assimilated to /aa/.

The consonant /v/ has disappeared when occurring between /u/ and /i/ or /a/, in these environments it is neither pronounced nor written. This means that affixes beginning with -va or -vi have forms without [v] when suffixed on stems ending in /u/.

The vowel /i/ of modern Greenlandic is the result of an historic merger of the Proto-Eskimo-Aleut vowels *i and *ɪ. The fourth vowel was still present in Old Greenlandic as attested by Hans Egede.^[20] In modern west Greenlandic the difference between the two original vowels can only be discerned morphophonologically in certain environments. The vowel that was originally *ɪ, called /i²/ in Greenlandic phonological studies, has the variant [a] when preceding another vowel and it sometimes disappears before certain suffixes.^[21]

The degree to which the assimilations of consonant clusters have taken place is an important dialectal feature separating Polar Eskimo, Inuktun, which still allows some ungeminated consonant clusters, from Western and Eastern Greenlandic. Eastern Greenlandic has furthermore shifted some geminate consonants, e.g. [ɫː] to [tː]. In Tunumiisut, for example, the name of the town of Scoresbysund is ittoqqotoormiit which would be illoqqortoormiut in Kalaallisut.^[10][11]

[edit] Grammar

The morphology of Greenlandic is highly synthetic and exclusively suffixing. It creates very long words by means of adding strings of suffixes to a stem.^[22]

There are few compound words, but lots of derivations. It uses a mixture of head and dependent marking: both agent and patient are marked on the predicate, the possessor is marked on nouns, and on the other hand dependent noun phrases inflect for case. The morpho-syntactic alignment of Kalaallisut is ergative.

Greenlandic distinguishes three open word classes: nouns, verbs and particles. The language distinguishes four persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 3rd reflexive), two numbers (singular and plural; no dual as in Inuktitut), eight moods (indicative, participial, imperative, optative, past subjunctive, future subjunctive and habitual subjunctive), ten cases (absolutive, ergative, equative, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative and prolative; for some selected nouns: nominative and accusative). Verbs carry bipersonal inflection for subject and object (distinguished by person and number). Transitive nouns carry possessive inflection.^[23]

In this section examples are written in Greenlandic standard orthography except that morpheme boundaries are indicated by a hyphen.

[edit] Nouns

Nouns are obligatorily inflected for case and number and optionally for number and person of possessor. Singular and plural are distinguished and 8 cases used: absolutive, ergative (relative), instrumental, allative, locative, ablative, prosecutive (also called vialis or prolative), and equative.^[24][25] Case and number is marked by a single suffix. Nouns can also be derived from verbs or from other nouns by a number of suffixes. e.g. atuar- "to read" + -toq becomes atuartoq "student" or atuar + -fik "place" becomes atuarfik "school".

[edit] Pronominal system

Greenlandic has a pronominal system with switch reference: there is a special so-called fourth person used to mark when a third person subject of a subordinate verb or the possessor of a noun is coreferent with the third person subject of the matrix clause.^[26] Most Greenlandic varieties do not distinguish between dualis and plural numbers as some canadian Eskimoan languages do, only a few local dialects have retained fossils of dual morphology.^[2] Below are given examples of the difference between third and fourth person:

illu-a taku-aa "he saw his (the other man's) house"

house-3POSS see-HE/IT

illu-ni taku-aa "he saw his own house"

house-4POSS see-HE/IT

Ole oqar-poq tillu-kkiga "Ole said I had hit him (the other man)"

Ole say-HE hit-I/him3

Ole oqar-poq tillu-kkini "Ole said I had hit him (Ole)"

Ole say-HE hit-I/him4

Eva iser-uni sini-ssaa-q "When Eva comes in she'll sleep"

Eva come.in-She4 sleep-FUT-she

Eva iser-pat sini-ssaa-q When Eva comes in (s)he'll sleep (someone else).

Eva come.in-She3 sleep-FUT-(s)he

[edit] Case and grammatical relations

The Greenlandic language uses case to express grammatical relations between participants in a sentence. Nouns are inflected with one of the two core cases or one of the 6 oblique cases.^[27]

Greenlandic is an ergative language, this means that instead of treating the grammatical relations as in european languages where grammatical subjects are marked with nominative case and objects with accusative the grammatical roles are defined differently. In Greenlandic instead the ergative case is used for agents of transitive verbs and for possessors. Absolutive case is used for patients of transitive nouns and subjects of intransitive nouns.^[28]

3. Kalaallisut
case endings

case	singular	plural
Absolutive	-q/-t/-k/-Ø	-(i)t
Ergative	-(u)p	-(i)t
Instrumental	-mik	-nik
Allative	-mut	-nut
Locative	-mi	-ni
Ablative	-mit	-nit
Prosecutive	-kkut	-tigut
Equative	-tut	-tut

angu-t neri-voq "the man eats"

man.ABS eat-HE

angu-p puisi neri-vaa "the man eats the seal"

man-ERG seal eat-HE/IT

The instrumental case is versatile. It is used for the instrument with which an action is carried out, for oblique objects of intransitive verbs and for secondary objects of transitive verbs.^[29]

nano-q savim-mi-nik kapi-vaa "he stabbed the bear with his knife"

polar bear-ABS knife-his.own-INSTR stab-HE/IT

kaffimik tor-tar-poq "he usually drinks coffee"

coffee-INSTR drink-usually-HE

Piitaq savim-mik tuni-vara "I gave peter a knife"

Peter knife-INSTR give-I/HIM

It is also used for the meaning of "give me":

imer-mik! "(give me) water"

water-INSTR

And for forming adverbs from nouns

sivisuu-mik sinip-poq "he slept late"

late-INSTR sleep-HE

The allative case describes movment towards something.^[30].

illu-mut "towards the house"

It is also used with numerals and the question word qassit to express time of clock, and to mean "per"

qassi-nut? pingasu-nut. "When? At three o'clock"

when-ALL three-ALL

kiilu-mut tivi krone-qar-poq "it costs 20 crowns per kilo"

kilo-ALL twenty crown-have-IT

The locative case describes location in a space.^[30]

illu-mi "in the house"

The ablative case describes movement away from something or the source of something^[30]

Rasmussi-mit allagarsi-voq "he got a letter from Rasmussi"

Rasmus-ABL receiveletter-HE

tuttu-mit nassuk " (antler)horn from a rein-deer"

rein.deer-ABL horn

The prosecutive case (also called vialis or prolative) describes movement through something, also the medium of writing or a location on the body. It is also used to describe a group of people, for example a family.^[31]

matu-kkut iser-poq "he entered through the door"

door-PROS enter-HE

su-kkut tillup-paatit? "where did he hit you (on the body)"

where-PROS hit-HE/YOU

palaasi-kkut "the priest and his family"

priest-PROS

The equative case describes similarity of manner, or quality. It is also used for languages.^[31]

nakorsatut suli-sar-poq "he works as a doctor"

doctor-EQU work-HAB-HE

Qallunaa-tut "Danish language (like a Dane)"

dane-EQU

[edit] Possession

4. Absolutive possessive inflection for weak nouns

Possessor	Singular	Plural
1st person Sg.	illuga "my house"	illukka "my houses"
2nd person Sg.	illut "your house"	illutit "your houses"
3rd person Sg.	illua "his house"	illui' "his houses"
4th person Sg.	illuni "his own house"	illuni "his own houses"
1st person Pl.	illorput "Our house"	illuvut "Our houses"
2nd person Pl.	illorsi "Y'alls house"	illusi "Y'alls houses"
3rd Person Pl.	illuat "their house"	illui "their houses"
4th person Pl.	illortik "their own house"	illutik "their own houses"

In Greenlandic possession is marked on the noun which agrees with the person and number of its possessor. The possessor is in the ergative case. There are different possessive paradigms for all of the different cases.^[32] Table 4. gives the possessive paradigm for the absolutive case of illu "house". Below are given examples of the use of the possessive inflection, the use of the ergatve case for possessors and the use of fourth person possessors.

Anda-p illu-a "Andas house"

Anda-ERG house-HE3/POSS

Anda-p illu-ni taku-aa "Anda sees his own house"

Anda-ERG house-HE4/POSS see-HE/IT

Anda-p illu-a taku-aa "Anda see's his (the other man's) house"

Anda-ERG house-HE3/POSS see-HE/IT

[edit] Verbs

Greenlandic verbs are morphologically enormously complex. The two main processes are inflection and derivation. Inflectional morphology includes the processes of obligatory inflection for mood, person, and voice (tense/aspect is not an obligatory inflectional category^[33][34][35]). Derivational morphology includes processes of adverbial modification of verbs by a large number of different suffixes (numbering in their hundreds). The Greenlandic verb word consists of a root + derivational suffixes + inflectional suffixes. Tense and aspect is marked by optional suffixes that appear between the derivational and inflectional suffixes.

[edit] Inflection

Greenlandic verbs inflect for agreement with agent and patient, for mood and voice. It distinguishes 8 moods, four of which are used in independent clauses and four of which are used in subordinate clauses. The four independent moods are: indicative, interrogative, imperative, optative. The four dependent moods are causative, conditional, contemporative and participial. Verbal roots can take either transitive or intransitive inflections and all the mood suffixes have both transitive and intransitive forms. They also have a separate negative form.^[36] This gives a total of 24 different inflectional paradigms. The inflectional system is further complicated by the fact that transitive suffixes encode both patient and agent in a single morpheme, requiring 48 different suffixes to cover all possible combinations of agent and patient for each of the eight transitive paradigms.

Indicative and interrogative moods

5. Indicative and interrogative intransitive moods

indicative	interrogative
nerivunga "I eat"	nerivunga? "do I eat"
nerivutit "you eat"	nerivit? "do you eat?"
nerivoq "he/she/it eats"	neriva "does he/she/it eat?"
nerivugut "we eat"	nerivugut? "de we eat?"
nerivusi "you eat (pl.)"	nerivisi? "do You eat? (pl.)"
neripput "they eat"	nerippat? "do they eat?"

Indicative mood is used in all independent expository clauses. The interrogative mood is used for posing questions. Questions with the question particle imaqa "maybe" cannot use the interrogative mood.^[37]

naparsima-vit? "Are you sick?" (Interrogative mood)

be.sick-YOU/INTERR

naamik, napparsima-nngila-nga. "No, I am not sick" (indicative mood)

no, be.sick-NEG-I/IND

In table 5. is given the intransitive indicative inflection for patient person and number of the verb neri- "to eat" in indicative and interrogative moods (question mark marks interrogative intonation - questions have falling intonation on the last syllable as opposed to most indo-european languages in which questions are marked by rising intonation). Both the indicative and the interrogative mood have both a transitive and an intransitive inflection, but here only the intransitive inflection is given.

Table 6. gives the transitive indicative inflection for patient person and number of the verb asa- "to love" (an asterisk means that this form does not occur as such but would have to use a different reflexive inflection).

6. Transitive indicative mood

First person subject	Second person subject	Third person subject
*	asavarma "you love me"	asavaanga "he/she/it loves me"
asavakkit "I love you"	*	asavaatit "he/she/it loves you"
asavara "I love him/her/it"	asavat" "you love her/him/it"	asavaa "he/she/it loves him/her/it"
*	asavatsigut "you love us	asavatigut "he/she/it loves us"
asavassi "I love them"	*	asavaasi "he/she/it loves you (pl.)"
asavakka "I love them"	asavatit "you love them"	asavai "he/she/it loves them"

Imperative and Optative moods

Imperative mood is used to issue orders it is always combined with the second person. Optative is used to express wishes or exhortations and is never used with the second person. There is a negative imperative form used to issue prohibitions. Both optative and imperative exists in transitive and intransitive paradigms. There are in fact two transitive positive imperative paradigms, a standard one and one which is considered rude and is mostly used when adressing children.^[38]

sini-git! "Sleep!"

sleep-IMP

sini-langa "let's sleep"

sleep-1p.OPT

sini-nak! "Don't sleep!"

sleep-NEG.IMP

Conditional mood

The conditional mood is used to construct subordinate clauses with the meaning "if" or "when".^[39]

seqinner-pat Eva ani-ssaa-q "If the sun shines Eva will go out"

Sunshine-COND Eva go.out-FUT/SHE

Causative mood

The causative mood is used to construct subordinate clauses with the meaning "because" or "since" or "when", it is also sometimes used with the meaning of "that". Often the causative is used as a main clause, but it then implies some underlying cause.^[40]

qasu-gami innar-poq "he went to bed because he was tired"

be.tired-CAU/HE go.to.bed-HE

matta-tor-ama "I've eaten blubber (that's why I'm not hungry)"

blubber-eat-CAU/I

ani-guit eqqaama-ssa-vat teriannia-qar-mat "if you go out, remember that there are foxes"

go.out-COND/YOU remember-fut-IMP fox-are-CAUS

Contemporative mood

The contemporative mood is used to construct subordinate clauses with the meaning of "being x" or "x ing". It is only used if the subject of the subordinate clause is coreferent with the subject of the matrix clause. If the two clauses have different subjects the participial mood or the causative mood is used. It can also be used to form complement clauses for expression verbs.^[41]

qasu-llunga angerlar-punga "being tired, I went home"

be.tired-CONT/I go.home-I

98-inik ukio-qar-luni toqu-voq "being 98-years old, he died/he was 98 when he died"

98-INSTR/PL year-have-CONT/HE die-HE

Eva oqar-poq kammi-t akiler-lugit "Eva said she had paid for the boots"

Eva say-SHE boot-PL pay-CONT/SHE

Participial mood

The participial mood is used to construct a subordinate clause with the meaning "that", "when" or "as". It is used when the matrix clause and the subordinate clause have different subjects. It is often used in appositional phrases such as relative clauses.^[42]

atuar-toq taku-ara "I saw him read/I saw that he read"

read-PART/HE see-I/HIM

neriu-ppunga tiki-ssa-soq "I hope he is coming/I hope he'll come"

hope-I come-FUT-PART/HE

[edit] Derivation

Verbal derivation is extremely productive and Greenlandic employs many hundreds derivational suffixes. Often a single verb will use more than one derivational suffix, leading to very long words. Below are given some examples of how derivational suffixes can change the meaning of verbs.

-katap- "be tired of"

taku-katap-para "I am tired of seeing it"

see-tired.of-I/IT

-ler- "begin to/be about to"

neri-ler-pugut "we are about to eat"

eat-begin-WE

-llaqip- "be proficient at"

erinar-su-llaqip-poq "She is good at singing"

sing-HAB-proficiently-SHE

-niar- "plans to/wants to"

aallar-niar-poq "he plans to travel"

travel-plan-HE

angerlar-niar-aluar-punga "I was planning to go home though"

go.home-plan-though-I

-ngajappoq- "almost"

sini-ngajap-punga "I had almost fallen asleep"

sleep-almost-I

-nikuu-nngila- "has never"

taku-nikuu-nngila-ra "I have never seen it"

see-never-NEG-IT

-nnitsoor- "not anyway/afterall"

tiki-nngitsoor-poq "he hasn't arrived afterall"

arrive-not.afterall-HE

[edit] Tense

It is an open discussion among specialists in Greenlandic whether the language should be considered to have tense or not. This is because the way the language refers to time grammatically is so different from how most European languages do it, that it becomes a question of whether the Greenlandic way of doing it qualifies as being the same thing as what is usually referred to as tense in European languages. Proponents of classifying Greenlandic as a tenseless language hold that since time is not a part of the Greenlandic inflectional system and most verbal forms can be interpreted as either past, present or future according to context, Greenlandic does not have grammatical tense.^[33][34] Other scholars hold that since Greenlandic is perfectly capable of constructing verbs that have only one possible temporal reading by using different derivational affixes related to time, it does have grammatical tense^[35]. The examples below illustrate how Greenlandic expresses temporal relations.

All verbs can take past readings with the simple indicative or interrogative moods, some verbs can also take present readings. Whether a verb can take present readings or not is determined by their semantics: verbs that describe a change of state take past readings whereas verbs that describe states can take either past or present readings depending on context. Verbs can be fixed in time by using different derivational affixes expressing pastness, presentness or futurity of time, or by using temporal expressions like "today", "yesterday" or "tomorrow" in the clause.^[43]

aserorpoq "it is broken/it broke"

siallerpoq "it rained/it rains"

itsaq siallerpoq "in the old days it rained" (itsaq = "in the old days")

massakkut siallerpoq "its raining now" (massakkut = "now")

The derivational suffix -ssaa- is used to express events that are predicted to take place in the future:

unnugu siallerssaaq "it will rain tonight" (unnugu = "tonight")

The derivational suffix -sima- is used to express events that concluded at some moment in the past or which one has been told about, it is often translated with the perfect past or with a hearsay marker. The derivational suffix -reer- is used to express events that happened and which were supposed to happen, it is often translated with "already" The derivational suffix -ler- expresses events that are just about to begin or which have just begun.

aallarpoq "he left/he leaves"

aallarsimavoq "he has left (they say)"

aallareerpoq "he has already left"

nerivoq "he ate/he eats"

nerereerpoq "he already ate/he finished eating"

nerilerpoq "he's about to eat"

[edit] Noun Incorporation

It is also an ongoing debate in the linguistc literature whether Greenlandic has noun incorporation or not. This is because Greenlandic does not allow the kind of incorporation common in many languages in the world where a noun root can be incorporated into almost any verb to form a verb with a new meaning. On the other hand Greenlandic does often form verbs that include noun roots.The question then becomes whether to analyse this verb formation as incorporation or as denominal verbal derivation. Greenlandic has a number of morphemes that require a noun root as their host and which form complex predicates that correspond closely in meaning to what is often seen in languages that have canonical noun incorporation. Linguists proposing that Greenlandic does have incorporation argue that these morphemes are in fact verbal roots that must obligatorily incorporate nouns in order to form grammatical clauses. ^{[44][45][46] [47][48][49]} This argument is supported by the fact that the many morphemes that require a nominal work almost syntactically identically as canonical noun incorporation and allow the formation of words that express what is an entire sentence with verb, subject and object in English. Other linguists maintain that the morphemes in question are simply derivational morphemes that allow the formation of denominal verbs. This argument is supported by the fact that the morphemes cannot occur without being latched on to a nominal element.^{[50][51] [52]} The examples below illustrate how Greenlandic forms complex predicates including nominal roots.

qimmeq "dog" + -qar- "have"

qimme-qar-poq "he has a dog"

dog-have-HE

illu "house" + -'lior- "make"

illu-lior-poq "he makes a house"

kaffi "coffee" + -tor- "drink/eat"

kaffi-tor-poq "he drinks coffee"

puisi "seal" + -niar- "hunt"

puisi-niar-poq "he hunts seal"

allagaq "letter" + -si- "receive"

allagar-si-voq "he has received a letter"

anaana "mother" + -a- "to be"

anaana-a-voq "She is a mother"

[edit] Syntax

Basic wordorder in transitive clauses is SOXV, where X is a a noun phrase in an oblique case. In contrast to other polysynthetic languages and also other Eskimoan languages which have rather free word order, in Greenlandic this order is quite fixed. In copular clauses the order is usually Subject-Copula-Complement. As the Greenlandic verb is a clause in itself clauses where all participants are expressed as free noun phrases are rather rare. Possessor precedes the possesum and heads precede their modifiers - this order is strictly obligatory. ^[53]

Andap tujuuluk pisiaraa "Anda bought the sweater"

Anda sweater bought

An appositional phrase appears after its head noun.

Andap tujuuluk tungujortok pisiaraa "Anda bought the blue sweater"

Anda sweater blue bought

An appositional phrase to an incorporated noun appears after the verb:

Anda sanasuuvoq pikkorissoq "Anda is a skilled carpenter"

Anda carpenter.IS skilled

Topical noun phrases aturally occur at the beginning of a clause whereas new or emphasised information generally come last. This is generally the verb, but it can also be a foregrounded grammatical subject or object. In spoken language also "afterthought" material or clarifications may follow the verb, usually in a lowered pitch. ^[54]

[edit] Coordination and Subordination

Syntactic coordination and subordination is done by combining predicates in the superordinate moods (indicative, interrogative, imperative, optative) with predicates in the subordinate moods (conditional, causative, contemporative and participial). The contemporative has both coordinative and subordinative functions depending on context. ^[55] The relative order of the main clause and any coordinate or subordinate clauses is relatively free, and mostly subject to pragmatic concerns. ^[56]

[edit] Vocabulary

Greenlandic vocabulary is mostly inherited from proto-Eskimo-Aleutian, but it has also taken a large number of loans from other languages, especially from Danish. Early loans from Danish have often become acculturated to the Greenlandic phonological system, for example the Greenlandic word palasi "priest" is a loan from the Danish "præst". But since Greenlandic has an enormous potential for the derivation of new words from existing roots, many modern concepts have Greenlandic names that have been invented rather than borrowed, e.g. qarasaasiaq "computer" which literally means "artificial brain". This potential for complex derivations also means that Greenlandic vocabulary is built on very few roots which combined with affixes come to form large word families.^[2] For example the root for "tongue" oqaq is used to derive the following words:

• oqarpoq 'says'
• oqaaseq 'word'
• oqaluppoq 'speaks'
• oqaasilerisoq 'linguist'
• oqaasilerissutit 'grammar'
• oqaluttualiortoq 'author'
• oqaasipiluuppaa 'harangues him'
• oqaatiginerluppaa 'speaks badly about him'

Often differences in vocabulary between dialects are considerable. This is due to the earlier cultural practice of imposing taboo on words which had served as names for a deceased person. Since people were often named after everyday objects, many of these have changed their name several times because of taboo rules, causing dialectal vocabulary to diverge further.^[2]

[edit] Orthography

In contrast to most Eskimo-Aleut languages in Canada, Greenlandic is written with the Latin alphabet and not with the Inuktitut syllabary.

A special character, kra (Κʻ / ĸ), was used until the spelling reform of 1973 replaced it with the letter q.^[57] In addition, vowel and consonant gemination were indicated by means of diacritics on the vowels (in the case of consonant gemination, the diacritics were placed on the vowel preceding the affected consonant). For example, the name Kalaallit Nunaat was spelled Kalâlit Nunát. This scheme uses an acute accent ( ´ ) to indicate vowel gemination (i.e., á, í, ú modern: aa, ii, uu), a tilde ( ˜ ) or a grave accent ( ` ), depending on the author, indicates gemination of the consonant following (e.g., ãt, ĩt, ũt or àt, ìt, ùt, modern: att, itt, utt), while a circumflex accent ( ˆ ) indicates a sequence of a geminated vowel followed by a geminated consonant (e.g., ât/ît/ût, modern: aatt, iitt, uutt). The letters ê and ô, used only before r and q, are now written er/eq and or/oq in Greenlandic. (The vowels e and o are position-dependent phonemic variants of i and u, as described in the discussion of vowels above.) The spelling system of Nunatsiavummiutut, spoken in Nunatsiavut in northeastern Labrador, is derived from the old Greenlandic system.

The alphabet for Greenlandic is: A E F G I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V. To spell loanwords from other languages, especially from Danish and English, the additional letters b, c, d, h, x, y, z, w, æ, ø and å are used.^[58]

Greenlandic uses the symbols ›...‹ and »...« as quotation marks.

[edit] Sample Text

Inuit tamarmik inunngorput nammineersinnaassuseqarlutik assigiimmillu ataqqinassuseqarlutillu pisinnaatitaaffeqarlutik. Silaqassusermik tarnillu nalunngissusianik pilersugaapput, imminnullu iliorfigeqatigiittariaqaraluarput qatanngutigiittut peqatigiinnerup anersaavani.

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

[edit] See also

• Inuit language
  • Inuit grammar
  • Inuit phonology

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further reading

• Fortescue, M. D. (1990). From the writings of the Greenlanders = Kalaallit atuakkiaannit. [Fairbanks, Alaska]: University of Alaska Press. ISBN 0912006439
• Sadock, J. M. (2003). A grammar of Kalaallisut: (West Greenlandic Inuttut). Languages of the world, 162. München: Lincom. ISBN 3895862347

[edit] External links

Wikinews has related news: Greenland assumes self rule Sunday

• Oqaasileriffik (The Greenland Language Secretariat) (version in English)
• The Bible in Kalaallisut online translation from the Church of Denmark
• Pulitzer Center Project on Greenlandic preservation
• State Linguistic papers and on Kalaallisut language, also original texts on Rutgers University
• http://kalaallisut.uit.no/ — A morphological parser for Kalaallisut (paste text to be analysed)
• Arctic Languages: An Awakening, ed: Dirmid R. F. Collis. ISBN 92-3-102661-5 Available in PDF via the UNESCO website. (chapter with Kalaallisut grammar and another with Inuit grammar)

v • d • e Eskimo-Aleut languages and dialects Italics indicate extinct languages Aleut Aleut Inuit* Greenlandic Eastern Greenlandic, Inuktun Inuinnaqtun   Inuktitut Nunatsiavummiutut, Inuttitut Inupiaq          Inuvialuktun Kangiryuarmiutun, Natsilingmiutut, Siglitun, Uummarmiutun Yupik Alutiiq   Central Alaskan Yugtun Central Siberian Qawiaraq Naukan   Sirenik**   See also; Proto-Eskimo, Proto-Eskimo-Aleut, Inuktitut writing *The Inuit language is a continuum of dialects, but while people can understand the dialects closest to them, it becomes harder the further away they are. **Some linguists classify Sirenik as under a separate Eskimo branch, and not under Yupik.