Think English is complicated? Greenlandic says, “Hold my ice-cold beer.” From mile-long words to grammar that practically does backflips, this language is packed with mind-bending features you probably didn’t see coming.
Ready for a frosty linguistic adventure?
1. Greenlandic’s Colonial Linguistic Baggage
From the Danish colonization in the 1700s to the beginning of Greenlandic home rule in 1979, Greenlandic experienced increasing pressure from the Danish language. This resulted in many loan words from Danish entering Greenlandic. But modern Greenlandic also borrows words from English, showing how languages can influence each other.
2. Tiny But Mighty: A Language with 57,000 Speakers
Greenlandic is spoken by about 57,000 people, mostly Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland. This might not seem like a lot compared to English’s hundreds of millions of speakers, but it’s the most widely spoken language in the Eskimo–Aleut family, and an important part of Greenland’s culture and heritage.
3. Word Wizardry: How Greenlandic Morphs Meanings Like Magic
Greenlandic has complex derivational morphology, which means that words can change form in complex ways to create new words or meanings. For example, the word for ‘eat’ might be changed to mean ‘one who eats a lot’, ‘eating quickly’, ‘able to eat’, and so on. This gives Greenlandic a lot of flexibility and precision in expressing ideas.
4. From Nuuk to Copenhagen: Greenlandic Goes Abroad
While Greenlandic is the official language of Greenland, it’s also recognized as a minority language in Denmark. This recognition helps protect and promote the use of Greenlandic in Denmark, and reflects the historical and ongoing connections between Greenland and Denmark.
5. How a Spelling Makeover Boosted Greenlandic Literacy
In 1973, a new orthography was introduced to Greenlandic to bring the written language closer to the spoken standard. This made the script much easier to learn, and boosted Greenlandic literacy rates. Today, literacy in Greenlandic is among the highest in the world.
6. The First Greenlandic Dictionary Was a Mission(ary)
The first Greenlandic dictionary was written by the missionary Paul Egede in 1750, and the first grammar in 1760. These were important steps in documenting and preserving the Greenlandic language, and they have been invaluable resources for linguists studying Greenlandic and related languages.
7. Who Owns the House? Greenlandic Grammar Knows
In Greenlandic, nouns are inflected for possession, which means they change form depending on who owns or has something. For example, the word for ‘house’ might change depending on whether it’s ‘my house’, ‘your house’, or ‘their house’. This is similar to how English changes ‘I’ to ‘my’ in ‘my house’.
8. The Mysterious Fourth Person (Yes, There’s a Fourth One)
Greenlandic has something called a ‘fourth-person’ category. This is used to switch reference between main clauses and subordinate clauses with different subjects. While this might sound complicated, it’s just another way that Greenlandic uses to express complex ideas and relationships between events.
9. The Canadian Cameo: Inuktun’s Arctic Journey
The language of the Inughuit of Greenland, Inuktun or Polar Eskimo, is a recent arrival and a dialect of Inuktitut. This shows how languages can spread and change over time and place, with a dialect of a Canadian language becoming a part of the linguistic landscape of Greenland.
10. Going Official: Greenlandic Gets Its Spotlight
Greenlandic is the official language of Greenland. In 2009, the government of Greenland made it the only official language to strengthen its position against Danish, the colonial language. This was a big step in promoting the use and importance of Greenlandic in the country.
11. Superglue Words: Greenlandic’s Polysynthetic Powers
Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language, which means that words can be created by joining multiple roots and suffixes together. For example, you might use one word for ‘snow’ and another for ‘falling’, and put them together to say ‘it’s snowing’. This allows for the creation of very specific and descriptive words, which can be quite long!
12. Not Just One Greenlandic—There’s a Whole Family
Greenlandic is not just one language, but consists of multiple dialects. The main one is Kalaallisut, or West Greenlandic, but there’s also Tunumiit oraasiat, or East Greenlandic. These dialects might have different words or pronunciation for the same thing, similar to how British and American English can differ.
13. Wait, You Greenlandic Love? Sentence Order Shuffle!
The usual word order in Greenlandic is subject-object-verb, which is different to English where we usually use subject-verb-object. For example, where in English we would say ‘I love Greenlandic’, in Greenlandic you would say something like ‘I Greenlandic love’. It can take some getting used to!
14. Feeling Moody? So Are Greenlandic Verbs
Greenlandic verbs are inflected for one of eight moods, which means the form of the verb changes depending on the mood or attitude of the speaker. For example, the verb ‘to see’ might have one form for ‘I see’, another for ‘I wish I could see’, and yet another for ‘I must see’.
15. A Thousand-Year Journey: Greenlandic’s Ancient Roots
Greenlandic was brought to Greenland by the Thule people around the 1200s. The Thule were the ancestors of the current Inuit population of Greenland. The languages spoken by earlier cultures in Greenland, like the Saqqaq and Dorset, remain unknown to us.
? Cooler Than You Thought, Right?
Greenlandic isn’t just a language—it’s a grammatical snowstorm, a historical time capsule, and a living example of how humans shape (and are shaped by) the way we communicate.
From fourth-person references to words that stretch like arctic winters, it’s safe to say Greenlandic is in a league of its own.
Drop a fact or two about it in your next conversation, and you’re instantly the most interesting person in the room. ?
Hey fellow Linguaholics! It’s me, Marcel. I am the proud owner of linguaholic.com. Languages have always been my passion and I have studied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics and Sinology at the University of Zurich. It is my utmost pleasure to share with all of you guys what I know about languages and linguistics in general.