Kalaallisut language
Encyclopedia : K : KA : KAL : Kalaallisut language
The Kalaallisut language (also called Greenlandic, Greenlandic Eskimo, or Greenlandic Inuktitut) is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in Greenland. It is closely related to some languages in Canada, such as Inuktitut. The language, like its relatives, is highly polysynthetic and ergative. There are almost no compound words, but mostly derivations. Greenland has three main dialects: North, West and East Greenlandic; West Greenlandic, the largest dialect, is called Kalaallisut. The northern dialect, Inuktun, spoken around the city of Qaanaaq (Thule) is more closely related to Canadian Inuktitut. Kalaallisut is spoken by about 54,000 people, which is more than all the other Eskimo-Aleut languages combined.
For a short comparison: the name Inuktitut, when translated into Kalaallisut, is Inuttut. One of the most famous Inuktitut words, iglu (house), is illu in Kalaallisut.
Kalaallisut distinguishes two open word classes: nouns and verbs. Each category is subdivided by intransitive and transitive words. The languages distinguishes four persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd reflexive), two numbers (singular, plural; no dual as in Inuktitut), eight moods (indicative, participial, imperative, optative, past subjunctive, future subjunctive, habitual subjunctive), ten cases (absolutive, ergative, equative, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative, perlative; for some selected nouns: nominative, accusative). Verbs carry bipersonal inflection for subject and object (distinguished by person and number). Transitive nouns carry possessive inflection.
In contrast to Eskimo-Aleut languages in Canada, Kalaallisut is written with the Latin alphabet and not with the Inuktitut syllabary. A special character, Kra (ΔΈ), was used exclusively in Kalaallisut until a spelling reform replaced it with the letter q.
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