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 ...

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 m ...

, 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 coun ...

. Tunumiit and

Inuktun Inuktun ( en, Polar Inuit, kl, avanersuarmiutut, da, nordgrønlandsk, polarinuitisk, thulesproget) is the language of approximately 1,000 indigenous Inughuit (Polar Inuit), inhabiting the world's northernmost settlements in Qaanaaq and the su ...

are the two other native languages of Greenland, spoken by a small minority of the population. Danish 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 Danish Greenlanders are ethnic Danes residing in Greenland and their descendants. Danish Greenlanders are a minority ethnic group in Greenland, accounting for around 11% of the territory's population. Greenlandic Inuit (including mixed-race pers ...

. 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 West Greenlandic Pidgin is an extinct Greenlandic-based contact language once used between the Inuit of Greenland and European traders. The vocabulary is mostly Greenlandic. Although words from Germanic languages were incorporated over the cours ...

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