Kalaallisut

The kalaallisut (sometimes called inuit Greenlandic, Greenlandic, eskimo of Greenland, inuit of Greenland) is one of the four great linguistic whole of the inuit or more precisely of the group Inuit-inupiaq, the three other units being the Inupiaq, spoken in Alaska, the Inuktun, spoken in the Canadian North-West, and the Inuktitut, spoken in Quebec and the Nunavut. This inuit-inupiaq group makes in its turn left the branch eskimo (which includes/understands also the Yupik and its varieties) of the family eskimo-aléoute.

The kalaallisut is spoken with the Greenland. It can be subdivided in two varieties:

  • the Kilaamiusut, spoken in the west about Greenland.
  • the Tunumiusut, spoken in the east about Greenland.

It is, like the other languages of its family, a polysynthetic language and ergative. There are almost no compound words, the majority of the vocabulary resulting from the variations of the names. The kalaallisut account approximately 50.000 speakers.

The kalaallisut considers two types of words: the Name S and the Verbe S. Each category has a subcategory separating the words transitive S from the intransitive S.

There are four people (1e, 2e, 3e and 3e reflexive), two numbers (singular and plural), eight modes (indicative, takes part, imperative, optative, subjunctive passed, subjunctive future, subjunctive present), ten case (absolutif, ergatif, équatif, instrumental, rental, allatif, ablative, perlatif; and for certain names: personal and accusative).

The kalaallisut is written by means of the Latin alphabet, to which one added the letter Kra (ĸ). Since a recent reform, one uses Q in the place of ĸ .

Others

See too

Internal bonds

Simple: Greenlandic language

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