Greenlandic - Old Norse

deardron
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Re: Greenlandic - Old Norse

Postby deardron » 2008-12-10, 17:56

I've heard that there's been about 4 loanwords from Old Norse to Greenlandic. Not so much at all, which means the contacts between both peoples were rather scarce.

Some time ago there was some noise that the Greenlandic word Kalaallisut 'Greenlandic' could originate from the Old Norse skrælingr 'pygmeon, shortish people', the name the Norse men used for the Inuit Greenlanders and which is not liked by the latter, so it must have been a little scandal over there, although I expect that people from Greenland could explain it better than me ;)

I remember a news report from ca. in 2004-2005 that a grave with skeletons of Greenlandic women was discovered in West-North Iceland (Ísafjörður area). The women were told to have lived in 14-15th centuries. So there surely were connections between Inuits and Norse/Icelanders that we know practically nothing about.

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