Greenlandic Resources?

Ragguna
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Country:GBUnited Kingdom (United Kingdom)
Greenlandic Resources?

Postby Ragguna » 2014-02-24, 18:57

Hi there everyone :)

I have recently started learning Greenlandic and I have been enjoying it very much, however there are only very few resources in English. The few books that do exist, such as A Grammar for Kalaallisut, really don't teach the language in a way that I can use it, rather its structure from a linguistic perspective. I can understand enough Danish and wouldn't mind using resources in Danish, however I haven't been able to find much on the internet still. The only books I've read about seem to be out of print or extremely rare. Grønlandsk for Begyndere is out of print and the only copy that I can find on Amazon won't ship to here in the UK, and I've read that Qaagit is a bit more of a phrasebook than anything, so sort of the opposite of a linguistic text. Does anybody know of any good resources out there that I could use and are actually obtainable?

Qujanarsuaq! :wink:

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limoneneis
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Re: Greenlandic Resources?

Postby limoneneis » 2014-02-24, 19:41

Hi, cool that you are learning Greenlandic. It's a beautiful language. I've been learning Kalaallisut for several years and I used Qaagit as well as Grønlandsk for Begyndere among others. I think Qaagit is great for beginners. It's true that it doesn't teach a lot of grammar, it has dialogs (that you can listen to if you have the CDs) and exercises that I think are meant for a classroom setting. But it's still good to teach you the basics and get you accustomed to the sound and structure of the language. There is a grammar exercise book that accompanies Qaagit called Qanoq. Have you checked out http://www.atuagkat.com? I bought Grønlandsk for Begyndere from this site http://www.academicbooks.dk. What resources are you using now?
[flag=]kl[/flag][flag=]ja[/flag]

Ragguna
Posts:2
Joined:2014-02-24, 18:41
Gender:male
Country:GBUnited Kingdom (United Kingdom)

Re: Greenlandic Resources?

Postby Ragguna » 2014-02-24, 20:01

Have you checked out http://www.atuagkat.com?


I haven't but thanks! I'll check out Qaagit.

I bought Grønlandsk for Begyndere from this site http://www.academicbooks.dk.


I've been lead to this website but the book is out of print and they don't sell it anymore :(

What resources are you using now?


A patchwork of anything I can find on the net really, including courses on various forums like this one made by members that teach the basics. It's a shame that resources are so scarce as it's such a beautiful language.

kaptengrot
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Country:SESweden (Sverige)

Re: Greenlandic Resources?

Postby kaptengrot » 2015-04-07, 16:37

Hi, I've hung around a big Nordic-language library a lot so let me tell you. Even in Danish basically ALL the resources I've ever seen are completely out-of-date, using the old orthography (sometimes even old Danish orthography!). The remaining resources are basically just modern Greenlandic bilingual books, but as we all know those tend to have very dubious translations even if both versions were written by the same person. Everyone thinks that if you want to learn Greenlandic you'll "obviously just go to Greenland", which is the same thinking that exists with Faroese, Sami, and to a lesser extent even Icelandic, which is why the learning materials for all those languages suck so badly.

The good news is, it means you can read all the old stuff in Greenlandic on timarit.is without a problem if you learn from that old stuff. But otherwise it's not that great.

It seems like the only real way is to find a fluent speaker and force them to write lessons that aren't just "one word a day" sorts of things. I've also tried to find some but all I managed to actually find was the sort of thing where someone's dad comes from Greenland but the kid never learnt the language so they couldn't help. Now that I think about it, if there is any Esperanto club in Greenland I can try to contact them and see if they want to help...
SV, EO: about C1 level; FO, IS: can read but can't write/speak; JP: beginner
http://learn-nordic.livejournal.com/ - resources if you want to learn any Nordic language (Greenlandic, Swedish, Old Norse etc.) but you have to make an account and join the community to see them.


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