Questions on Qaagit

[deardron]

Some days ago a delivery from Greenland arrived with GL-DK and DK-GL dictionaries as well as the Qaagit course. So it's been Christmass time here already

But straight after I took the first lesson a sad thing came up. I struggle to translate, or better to say, to morphologically analyse some of these long words. Qaagit doesn't translate some of them, which makes the whole thing even more complicated. Here are the examples:

1. Sulerisarpit? - as I guess, it means 'where do you work'? Suli means 'to work', what means the following part(s)?

2. Allaffigisassarsiorpunga 'I'm looking for a penpal'
According to the dictionaries, 'penpal' is allaffigisartaq and 'he looks for' - pissarsiarpoq. What is the rule according to which the last part of the first word (-rtaq) and the first part of the second one (pi-) is omitted when combined into one complex?

3. What mean the words naserujussuarmik and aataarujussuarmik, especially the part -ujussuarmik? Can't find it in the dictionnary.

[nighean-neonach]

Woohoo... time to revive my Greenlandic, I suppose. That seems like such a long time ago *sigh*

Okay, let's try:

1. Sulerisarpit ->
suliaq = work/job
-ler is added to a noun stem to make a certain kind of verb stem
-tar- or -sar- is added to indicate that you do this regularly/usually/all the time
-pit is the interrogative ending 2nd sg.

2. That's far too complex for a beginner, just forget it...

3. naserujussuarmik ->
nasippoq = he/she it looks out for something
-rujussuar- = something like "big" or "much"
-mik is actually a noun case ending (instrumental), so this is possibly something like "with the person who does a lot of looking/watching"... errr, well, creative guessworking Where does that one actually appear in the book?
The first part in the other word is aataaq, a seal (the animal).

By the way, if you are really interested in Greenlandic, you should definitely get the Qimawin CD. I can't find mine at the moment, otherwise my answers would probably have been a bit more useful...

[deardron]

OK, thanks a lot! It is Lesson 1, 10. Erinarsorta (the song).

Oh, I suppose I always skipped that because I didn't really like the sound of it

What is so good about it apart from the fact that it has several digital dictionaries?

Well, you can type in any word you come across, and the program will analyse it for you - mostly correctly, or at least well enough for you to get some very good hints. It lists the basic root + all the affixes and their meanings.

[deardron]

Oh, I suppose I always skipped that because I didn't really like the sound of it

Well, at least it's not Greenlandic rap..

Well, you can type in any word you come across, and the program will analyse it for you - mostly correctly, or at least well enough for you to get some very good hints. It lists the basic root + all the affixes and their meanings.

I remember a similar thing on some Norwegian website:

http://giellatekno.uit.no/kal.html

But it's so poorly documented that it is of little help, because you don't have a clue what these abbreviations mean in most cases. Is Qimawin better at this point?

[nighean-neonach]

Well, first you have to find out what all the abbreviations mean, but as far as I remember there is a good help file on the CD. As I said, I can't find it at the moment (my desk and bookshelf are a mess! ), but I do remember that it was really useful. Even with very long and complicated word forms you usually got some good results.

[murphyalex]

I once thought about learning this after getting my head around the Scandanavian grammar rules, then I learnt it was from a whole different language origin, and the way the long words are just combined totally threw me and I realised I had to have patience.

Nice to see other people are having a go!

[alexlex]

Okay, let's try:

1. Sulerisarpit ->
suliaq = work/job
-ler is added to a noun stem to make a certain kind of verb stem
-tar- or -sar- is added to indicate that you do this regularly/usually/all the time
-pit is the interrogative ending 2nd sg.

That is not entirely correct.

Sulerisarpit? 'What is your occupation?' : su- (what) + -leri- (to do, to work with, to have as an occupation) + -tar-/-sar- + pit.

One can also say: Suuit? 'What are you?'