Language Learning Resource

Learn Greenlandic

kalaallisut 

Language Facts: 

Speakers:  57,000
Family:  Inuit
Status:  Official in Greenland , recognized minority language in mainland Denmark 
Script:  Latin 
 
  •  Greenlandic writing is very simple. It uses the Latin alphabet and only 18 letters, although the rest of the letters are used in the many Danish and English loanwords.
  • Words are very synthetic, meaning that many roots and suffixes can be combined to form very long words. 
  • Greenlandic is an ergative language. Understanding this difference can be a challenge for learns who have never studied an ergative language before. 
  • There is no traditional “tense”, but verbs are conjugated for mood, person, and number. Some time markers exist, but tense is usually left to context or time-based words 
  • Basic word order is Subject-Object-Verb 
  • Nouns can be declined to 8 different cases  
  • Some verbs are also conjugated with evidentiality. 
 
Overall, Greenlandic is a complicated language with limited resources. It’s important to use every resource you can find to get as much exposure to the basics and beyond. 
 
 
greenlandic 

Learn Greenlandic:

Books: 

West Greenlandic- an Essential Grammar : A comprehensive review on the Greenlandic language. Probably best for learners that already have a solid base in the language. 

Youtube: 

Q’s Greenland – great content about Greenland and the Greenlandic language. Same shorts are available on TikTok. 

Online:

This Tumblr page – I wouldn’t normally wouldn’t recommend a Tumblr page as a language learning resource, but for languages with scarce amount of resources sometimes you must be creative! This account aggregated many great things around the Greenlandic language. 
 
 

Podcasts: 

Courses:

 LearnGreenlandic.com – has free course materials to learn Greenlandic, mostly in Danish. 

Greenlandic Media: 

Sermitsiaq.com – Twice weekly news published in Greenlandic

Greenlandic Broadcasting Company – public radio; the website has both TV and podcasts. Even though some is in Danish, most of the content is Greenlandic.