Greenlandic

Greenlandic is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken by about 57,000 people in Greenland and Denmark. It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada, such as Inuktitut. The main dialect, Kalaallisut  or West Greenlandic, has been the official language of the Greenlandic autonomous territory since June 2009; this is a move by the Greenlandic government to strengthen the language in its competition with the colonial language, Danish. Other dialects are East Greenlandic (Tunumiisut) and the Thule dialect Inuktun.

Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots and suffixes. Its morphosyntactic alignment is ergative. Nouns are inflected for one of the eight cases and for possession. Verbs are inflected for one of the eight moods and for the number and person of its subject and object. Both nouns and verbs have complex derivational morphology. Basic word order in transitive clauses is Subject Object Verb. Subordination of clauses is done by the use of special subordinate moods. A so-called fourth person category enables switch reference between main clauses and subordinate clauses with different subjects. Greenlandic is notable for its lack of a system of grammatical tense, as temporal relations are normally expressed through context, through the use of temporal particles such as "yesterday" or "now" or sometimes through the use of derivational suffixes or the combination of affixes with aspectual meanings with the semantic aktionsart of different verbs. However, some linguists have suggested that Greenlandic does mark future tense obligatorily. Another question is whether the language has Noun incorporation, or whether the processes that create complex predicates that include nominal roots are derivational in nature.

When adopting new concepts or technologies Greenlandic usually constructs new words made from Greenlandic roots, but modern Greenlandic has also taken many loans from Danish and English. The language has been written in the Latin script since Danish colonization began in the 18th century. The first orthography was developed by Samuel Kleinschmidt in 1851, but by the mid-twentieth century already differed substantial from the spoken language due to a number of sound changes. An extensive orthographic reform undertaken in 1973 that made the script easier to learn resulted in a boost in Greenlandic literacy.

(Ref: Wikipedia)

Greenlandic on whatamieating.com

To find foods and foods and food-related items in whatamieating.com in Greenlandic you may search by any of the following terms:
Aleut East Eskimo Greenland Greenlander Greenlandic Inuit Inuktun Kalaallisut Nordic Thule Tunumiisut West

These terms associated with languages are hidden behind the scenes as there is some crossover with other languages. The traveller in Greenland may not be precisely certain which language is in use, and can search using more general terms such as 'Greenlander''.

You may use any of the above terms in any search you make using 'Translate from English' so that if you wish to search for a translation of herring, choose whichever of these language terms that you think is most appropriate, say:
'Kalaallisut herring' and then click on 'Translate from English'

One of the problems of providing searches in a multilingual world-wide food dictionary is trying to help people reach the things they are searching for. People do not always know the precise language being used, so these more general searches such as  'Greenlandic' may help in a successful search.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlandic_language

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