Greenlandic phrasebook

Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) is the main, and since 2009, the sole official language of Greenland. It is an Eskimo–Aleut language, closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuktitut.

The name Kalaallisut can refer either to the official language or the main variety, Western Greenlandic. Tunumiit oraasiat (East Greenlandic), and Inuktun (Polar Eskimo) are the other main Inuit language varieties spoken in Greenland; the latter is especially close to Inuktitut. The three Greenlandic languages are not easily mutually intelligible. In addition, various local dialects are present; Kalaallisut has three distinct dialects: north, central, and south dialects.

Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots and suffixes. Inflection is quite complex. Greenlandic usually constructs new words made from Greenlandic roots, by the very rich derivative mechanisms, but Greenlandic also has many loan words from Danish and English.

Inuit cultures are traditionally oral cultures exclusively, and as such, the Greenlandic language stands out among the many Inuit languages as having a particularly strong written tradition. The first phrasebook was published in 1750 by Poul Egede and was a Greenlandic-Danish-Latin phrasebook. In 1791, Otto Fabricius published the first book on Greenlandic grammar, and later on, Danish-German missionary Samuel Kleinschmidt did extensive work on the Greenlandic written language in the mid 1800s. This development explains why the Greenlandic language uses Latin (and Danish) letters and Arabic numbers. The early Norse settlers in Greenland wrote in Norse runes, but the Norse runic alphabet does not seem to have inspired the later Thule people in Greenland at all.