West Greenlandic ( da, vestgrønlandsk), also known as Kalaallisut, is the primary language of

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

and constitutes the

Greenlandic language Greenlandic ( kl, kalaallisut, link=no ; da, grønlandsk ) is an Eskimo–Aleut language with about 56,000 speakers, mostly Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland. It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuktitut. It is the mos ...

, spoken by the vast majority of the inhabitants of Greenland, as well as by thousands of Greenlandic Inuit in Denmark proper (in total, approximately 50,000 people).Peter Schmitter, ''Sprachtheorien der Neuzeit: Sprachbeschreibung und Sprachunterricht'', Narr, 2007, p. 406. It was historically spoken in the southwestern part of Greenland, i.e. the region around

Nuuk Nuuk (; da, Nuuk, formerly ) is the capital and largest city of Greenland, a constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark. Nuuk is the seat of government and the country's largest cultural and economic centre. The major cities from other co ...

Tunumiit Tunumiit or Iivit are Greenlandic Inuit from Tunu or Kangia, the eastern part of Greenland. The Tunumiit live now mainly in Tasiilaq and Ittoqqortoormiit and are a part of the Arctic people known collectively as the Inuit. The singular for Tunumi ...

and Inuktun are the two other native languages of Greenland, spoken by a small minority of the population.

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

remains an important

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

in Greenland and used in many parts of public life, as well as being the main language spoken by Danes in Greenland. An extinct mixed

trade language A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

known as West Greenlandic Pidgin was based on West Greenlandic.Silvia Kouwenberg, John Victor Singler (ed.), ''The Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies'', Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, West Sussex, p. 172.

References

{{IndigenousAmerican-lang-stub Greenlandic language Inuit languages Languages of Greenland Indigenous languages of the North American Arctic