Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

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aaakknu
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Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby aaakknu » 2016-02-26, 13:39

Is it possible?
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hwyadinnguaq

Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby hwyadinnguaq » 2016-02-28, 13:06

It could be possible, to an extent... If you do some digging around I'm sure there are some decent resources written in other languages, but they're probably going to be a little more difficult to find than the Danish ones.

The only books I know of in English are Jerrold M. Sadock's A Grammar of Kalaallisut and Michael Fortescue's West Greenlandic Descriptive Grammar, although neither are particularly ideal for actually learning from - they're more like general references or linguistic guides.

I haven't got a copy myself (although that'll hopefully change soon) but the Word List available at Atuagkat - here - appears to be trilingual and I'm guessing it's a mini dictionary, so I'm sure that could be helpful.

I think I remember someone mentioning a German book too, and there's at least one book on Inuktun written (partially) in French, so you may be able to find some useful materials in either of those languages. But Danish aside, I'd guess English would be your best bet... And other than basic phrases, there's just not that much material out there, unfortunately. :?

If you'd like, I could try translating parts from Grønlandsk for begyndere volumes 1 and 2, and Qaagit, and post some lessons here. It would be far from perfect but I've found them to be useful resources, and if you don't want to learn Danish it could be useful.

księżycowy

Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby księżycowy » 2016-02-28, 18:23

Seems we've had some activity here lately, that's nice to see.

My words of advice are unless you are 1) Dead-set on learning Greenlandic and/or 2)Know Danish, that you might consider another Inuit language, such as Inuktitut or Ińupiaq. There are just as many (if not more) resources on those dialects/languages, and they are mostly in English. Some of which are quite good. And from if you wanted, you could still learn Greenlandic after, as it's in same language family, and they are all very closely related languages. I'd recommend, if one where to go this route to pick up a dialect of Inuktitut. And yes, I know this is a little out of the way, but so it goes.

Just my two cents on the subject as someone who has spent time and resources on a very similar quest. (Though to be honest, I was more interested in Inuktitut myself, but ended up picking up some books and stuff for Ińupiaq. Haha.)

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Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby aaakknu » 2016-03-05, 17:04

księżycowy wrote:Seems we've had some activity here lately, that's nice to see.

My words of advice are unless you are 1) Dead-set on learning Greenlandic and/or 2)Know Danish, that you might consider another Inuit language, such as Inuktitut or Ińupiaq. There are just as many (if not more) resources on those dialects/languages, and they are mostly in English. Some of which are quite good. And from if you wanted, you could still learn Greenlandic after, as it's in same language family, and they are all very closely related languages. I'd recommend, if one where to go this route to pick up a dialect of Inuktitut. And yes, I know this is a little out of the way, but so it goes.

Just my two cents on the subject as someone who has spent time and resources on a very similar quest. (Though to be honest, I was more interested in Inuktitut myself, but ended up picking up some books and stuff for Ińupiaq. Haha.)

I'll try Inuktitut maybe, though I'm much more interested in Greenlandic. Which dialect of Inuktitut is the closest to Greenlandic?
Is "kt" in Inuktitut pronounced as "tt"?
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Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby aaakknu » 2016-03-05, 17:21

hwyadinnguaq wrote:
If you'd like, I could try translating parts from Grønlandsk for begyndere volumes 1 and 2, and Qaagit, and post some lessons here. It would be far from perfect but I've found them to be useful resources, and if you don't want to learn Danish it could be useful.


I could try learning Danish if there is not another way, but not now, because I'm already learning English, Estonian, Spanish and Crimean Tatar, and fifth language will be too much. I do not plan to learn Greenlandic seriously until I reach good level in Estonian, but I thought it will be good if I learn basics now and after some time I will continue.

If you can, give me please the first lesson from that book, so I can see, what is it like.

Also, do you know about underlinear translations of Greenlandic stories word by word? I think it could be useful. I've seen such stories for other languages. I think I can try deciphering some Greenlandic grammar this way. It could be fun :)
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księżycowy

Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby księżycowy » 2016-03-05, 18:15

Give Tusaalanga a look and see what you think. It even has audio, though not for every dialog/dialect. There are some dialects that I would suspect are very similar to Greenlandic. Primarily those of Eastern Canada. Which one(s) specifically, I don't know however.

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Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby aaakknu » 2016-03-05, 19:08

księżycowy wrote:Though to be honest, I was more interested in Inuktitut myself, but ended up picking up some books and stuff for Ińupiaq.

How long have you been learning Inuktitut?
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Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby aaakknu » 2016-03-05, 19:09

księżycowy wrote:Give Tusaalanga a look and see what you think. It even has audio, though not for every dialog/dialect. There are some dialects that I would suspect are very similar to Greenlandic. Primarily those of Eastern Canada. Which one(s) specifically, I don't know however.

Thank you!
I think I'll try the dialect that is the closest to Greenland on the map.
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Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-03-14, 17:53

I think there are videos up on YouTube for learning Greenlandic through English.

Well, OK, maybe not really, but at least there's this one talks about how to make a few simple (one-word) sentences in Greenlandic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l79jB4Bjx2c
And this one with a Christmas wish in Greenlandic, which is written out in the video, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oopXrMzISxw
Other than that, FWIW, there are some videos in Greenlandic with subtitles in English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4cyMEOkhU4
This one has the Greenlandic also written out in the subtitles, along with a translation into English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYipRhTeXc0

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Re: Learning Greenlandic without knowing Danish

Postby gombicek » 2016-09-29, 21:00

There is also a book from Kauderwelsch in german. It is more of a phrasebook, but they explain some basic grammar so it can be used as a nice intro into the language.
https://www.reise-know-how.de/produkte/ ... -wort-5709

And audio https://www.reise-know-how.de/produkte/ ... dio-cd-218

They also have pdf and mp3 versions. Plus its really cheap. And in english I know of http://learngreenlandic.com/ .


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