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41-553: Sisimiut Museum ( Greenlandic : Sisimiut Katersugaasiviat ) is a museum in Sisimiut , Greenland . Located in a historical building near the harbour, specialises in Greenlandic trade, industry and shipping, with artifacts based on ten years of archaeological research and excavations of the ancient Saqqaq culture settlements near the town, offering an insight into the culture of the region of 4,000 years ago. The museum also hosts

82-406: A sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic change ) or a more general change to the speech sounds that exist ( phonological change ), such as the merger of two sounds or the creation of a new sound. A sound change can eliminate

123-657: A 100% literacy rate. As the Western Greenlandic standard has become dominant, a UNESCO report has labelled the other dialects as endangered, and measures are now being considered to protect the Eastern Greenlandic dialect. Kalaallisut and the other Greenlandic dialects belong to the Eskimo–Aleut family and are closely related to the Inuit languages of Canada and Alaska . Illustration 1 shows

164-592: A change operates unconditionally (in all environments), the context in which it applies must be specified: For example: Here is a second example: The symbol "#" stands for a word boundary (initial or final) and so the notation "/__#" means "word-finally", and "/#__" means "word-initially": That can be simplified to in which P stands for any plosive . In historical linguistics , a number of traditional terms designate types of phonetic change, either by nature or result. A number of such types are often (or usually) sporadic, that is, more or less accidents that happen to

205-471: A collection of handcraft, art, house items and ethnographic objects compiled over fifty years. In 1989, Finn Kramer, curator of the museum, discovered the Nipisat Saqqaq culture site and was in charge of its evacuation during the next five years. 66°56′19″N 53°40′15″W  /  66.9385°N 53.6708°W  / 66.9385; -53.6708 Greenlandic language Greenlandic

246-485: A collection of tools and domestic items collected during 1902–22, an inventory from the old Church with the original altarpiece dated to approximately 1650, and paintings from the 1790s. The peat house reconstruction of an early 20th-century Greenlandic residence with domestic furniture is part of an outdoor exhibition. The exhibition includes the remains of a kayak from the 18th century and the Poul Madsen collection,

287-455: A new one cannot affect only an original X. Sound change ignores grammar : A sound change can have only phonological constraints, like X > Z in unstressed syllables . For example, it cannot affect only adjectives . The only exception is that a sound change may recognise word boundaries, even when they are unindicated by prosodic clues. Also, sound changes may be regularized in inflectional paradigms (such as verbal inflection), when it

328-469: A transitive agent, whereas "I bought a guitar " and "as the guitar plays" (the latter being the intransitive sense of the same verb "to play") would both be in the absolutive case. Nouns are inflected by one of eight cases and for possession. Verbs are inflected for one of eight moods and for the number and person of its subject and object . Both nouns and verbs have complex derivational morphology. The basic word order in transitive clauses

369-567: Is ergative-absolutive , but verbal morphology follows a nominative-accusative pattern and pronouns are syntactically neutral. The language distinguishes four persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th or 3rd reflexive (see Obviation and switch-reference ); two numbers (singular and plural but no dual , unlike Inuktitut); eight moods (indicative, interrogative, imperative, optative, conditional, causative, contemporative and participial) and eight cases (absolutive, ergative, equative, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative and prolative). Greenlandic (including

410-418: Is subject–object–verb . The subordination of clauses uses special subordinate moods. A so-called fourth-person category enables switch-reference between main clauses and subordinate clauses with different subjects. Greenlandic is notable for its lack of grammatical tense ; temporal relations are expressed normally by context but also by the use of temporal particles such as "yesterday" or "now" or sometimes by

451-491: Is a phonological change . The following statements are used as heuristics in formulating sound changes as understood within the Neogrammarian model. However, for modern linguistics, they are not taken as inviolable rules but are seen as guidelines. Sound change has no memory : Sound change does not discriminate between the sources of a sound. If a previous sound change causes X,Y > Y (features X and Y merge as Y),

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492-404: Is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots and suffixes . The language's morphosyntactic alignment is ergative , treating both the argument (subject) of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb in one way, but the subject of a transitive verb in another. For example, " he plays the guitar" would be in the ergative case as

533-435: Is contrastive only in loanwords . The alveolar stop /t/ is pronounced as an affricate [t͡s] before the high front vowel /i/ . Often, Danish loanwords containing ⟨b d g⟩ preserve these in writing, but that does not imply a change in pronunciation, for example ⟨baaja⟩ [paːja] "beer" and ⟨Guuti⟩ [kuːtˢi] "God"; these are pronounced exactly as /p t k/ . The broad outline of

574-475: Is fronted to [ʉ] between two coronal consonants. The allophonic lowering of /i/ and /u/ before uvular consonants is shown in the modern orthography by writing /i/ and /u/ as ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ respectively before ⟨q⟩ and ⟨r⟩ . For example: The palatal sibilant [ʃ] has merged with [s] in all dialects except those of the Sisimiut – Maniitsoq – Nuuk – Paamiut area. The labiodental fricative [f]

615-417: Is inevitable : All languages vary from place to place and time to time, and neither writing nor media prevents that change. A statement of the form is to be read as "Sound A changes into (or is replaced by, is reflected as, etc.) sound B". Therefore, A belongs to an older stage of the language in question, and B belongs to a more recent stage. The symbol ">" can be reversed, B < A, which also means that

656-477: Is no longer phonological but morphological in nature. Sound change is exceptionless : If a sound change can happen at a place, it will affect all sounds that meet the criteria for change. Apparent exceptions are possible because of analogy and other regularization processes, another sound change, or an unrecognized conditioning factor. That is the traditional view expressed by the Neogrammarians. In

697-421: Is the most innovative by further simplifying its structure by eliding /n/ . The Greenlandic three- vowel system, composed of /i/ , /u/ , and /a/ , is typical for an Eskimo–Aleut language. Double vowels are analyzed as two morae and so they are phonologically a vowel sequence and not a long vowel. They are also orthographically written as two vowels. There is only one diphthong, /ai/ , which occurs only at

738-412: Is the most innovative of the Greenlandic dialects since it has assimilated consonant clusters and vowel sequences more than West Greenlandic. Kalaallisut is further divided into four subdialects. One that is spoken around Upernavik has certain similarities to East Greenlandic, possibly because of a previous migration from eastern Greenland. A second dialect is spoken in the region of Uummannaq and

779-589: Is the only word that is required in a sentence. Since verbs inflect for number and person of both subject and object, the verb is in fact a clause itself. Therefore, clauses in which all participants are expressed as free-standing noun phrases are rather rare. The following examples show the possibilities of leaving out the verbal arguments: Sini-ppoq sleep- 3SG / IND Sini-ppoq sleep-3SG/IND "(S)he sleeps" Angut man. ABS sinippoq sleep- 3SG / IND Angut sinippoq man.ABS sleep-3SG/IND Sound changes In historical linguistics ,

820-622: Is the policy of "Greenlandization" of Greenlandic society that began with the home rule agreement of 1979. The policy has worked to reverse the former trend towards marginalization of the Greenlandic language by making it the official language of education. The fact that Greenlandic has become the only language used in primary schooling means that monolingual Danish-speaking parents in Greenland are now raising children bilingual in Danish and Greenlandic. Greenlandic now has several dedicated news media:

861-614: The Disko Bay . The standard language is based on the central Kalaallisut dialect spoken in Sisimiut in the north, around Nuuk and as far south as Maniitsoq . Southern Kalaallisut is spoken around Narsaq and Qaqortoq in the south. Table 1 shows the differences in the pronunciation of the word for "humans" in the two main dialects and Inuktun. It can be seen that Inuktun is the most conservative by maintaining ⟨gh⟩ , which has been elided in Kalaallisut, and Tunumiisut

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902-417: The comparative method . Each sound change is limited in space and time and so it functions in a limited area (within certain dialects ) and for a limited period of time. For those and other reasons, the term "sound law" has been criticized for implying a universality that is unrealistic for sound change. A sound change that affects the phonological system or the number or the distribution of its phonemes

943-422: The (more recent) B derives from the (older) A": The two sides of such a statement indicate only the start and the end of the change, but additional intermediate stages may have occurred. The example above is actually a compressed account of a sequence of changes: * [t] first changed to [θ] (like the initial consonant of English thin ), which has since yielded [f] and can be represented more fully: Unless

984-404: The 1700s. Greenlandic's first orthography was developed by Samuel Kleinschmidt in 1851, but within 100 years, it already differed substantially from the spoken language because of a number of sound changes . An extensive orthographic reform was undertaken in 1973 and made the script much easier to learn. This resulted in a boost in Greenlandic literacy , which is now among the highest in

1025-494: The Greenlandic National Radio, Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa , which provides television and radio programming in Greenlandic. The newspaper Sermitsiaq has been published since 1958 and merged in 2010 with the other newspaper Atuagagdliutit/Grønlandsposten , which had been established in 1861 to form a single large Greenlandic language publishing house. Before June 2009, Greenlandic shared its status as

1066-507: The Greenlandic grammar is similar to other Eskimo languages, on the morpholological and syntactic plan. The morphology of Greenlandic is highly synthetic and exclusively suffixing (except for a single highly-limited and fossilized demonstrative prefix). The language creates very long words by means of adding strings of suffixes to a stem. In principle, there is no limit to the length of a Greenlandic word, but in practice, words with more than six derivational suffixes are not so frequent, and

1107-413: The affected sound, or a new sound can be added. Sound changes can be environmentally conditioned if the change occurs in only some sound environments , and not others. The term "sound change" refers to diachronic changes, which occur in a language's sound system. On the other hand, " alternation " refers to changes that happen synchronically (within the language of an individual speaker, depending on

1148-495: The average number of morphemes per word is three to five. The language has between 400 and 500 derivational suffixes and around 318 inflectional suffixes. There are few compound words but many derivations. The grammar uses a mixture of head and dependent marking . Both agent and patient are marked on the predicate, and the possessor is marked on nouns, with dependent noun phrases inflecting for case. The primary morphosyntactic alignment of full noun phrases in Kalaallisut

1189-767: The eastern Tunumiisut variety) is the only Eskimo language having lost its dual. Verbs carry a bipersonal inflection for subject and object. Possessive noun phrases inflect for both possessor and case. In this section, the examples are written in Greenlandic standard orthography except that morpheme boundaries are indicated by a hyphen. Greenlandic distinguishes three open word classes : nouns , verbs and particles . Verbs inflect for person and number of subject and object as well as for mood. Nouns inflect for possession and for case. Particles do not inflect. Oqar-poq say- 3SG / IND Oqar-poq say-3SG/IND "(S)he says" Angut man. ABS Angut man.ABS "A man" Naamik No Naamik No "No" The verb

1230-428: The ends of words. Before a uvular consonant ( /q/ or /ʁ/ ), /i/ is realized allophonically as [e] , [ɛ] or [ɐ] , and /u/ is realized allophonically as [o] or [ɔ] , and the two vowels are written ⟨e, o⟩ respectively (as in some orthographies used for Quechua and Aymara ). /a/ becomes retracted to [ɑ] in the same environment. /i/ is rounded to [y] before labial consonants. /u/

1271-468: The first Greenlandic dictionary in 1750 and the first grammar in 1760. From the Danish colonization in the 1700s to the beginning of Greenlandic home rule in 1979, Greenlandic experienced increasing pressure from the Danish language. In the 1950s, Denmark's linguistic policies were directed at strengthening Danish. Of primary significance was the fact that post-primary education and official functions were conducted in Danish. From 1851 to 1973, Greenlandic

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1312-399: The laws of physics, and the term "law" is still used in referring to specific sound rules that are named after their authors like Grimm's law , Grassmann's law , etc. Real-world sound laws often admit exceptions, but the expectation of their regularity or absence of exceptions is of great heuristic value by allowing historical linguists to define the notion of regular correspondence by

1353-441: The locations of the different Inuit languages, among them the two main dialects of Greenlandic and the separate language Inuktun ("Avanersuaq"). The most prominent Greenlandic dialect is Kalaallisut, which is the official language of Greenland. The name Kalaallisut is often used as a cover term for all of Greenlandic. The eastern dialect ( Tunumiit oraasiat ) , spoken in the vicinity of Ammassalik Island and Ittoqqortoormiit ,

1394-455: The meaning of the words that are affected. Apparent exceptions to regular change can occur because of dialect borrowing, grammatical analogy, or other causes known and unknown, and some changes are described as "sporadic" and so they affect only one or a few particular words, without any apparent regularity. The Neogrammarian linguists of the 19th century introduced the term sound law to refer to rules of regular change, perhaps in imitation of

1435-515: The neighbouring sounds) and do not change the language's underlying system (for example, the -s in the English plural can be pronounced differently depending on the preceding sound, as in bet [s], bed [z], which is a form of alternation, rather than sound change). Since "sound change" can refer to the historical introduction of an alternation (such as postvocalic /k/ in the Tuscan dialect , which

1476-542: The official language in Greenland with Danish. Since then, Greenlandic has become the sole official language. That has made Greenlandic a unique example of an indigenous language of the Americas that is recognized by law as the only official language of a semi-independent country. Nevertheless, it is still considered to be in a "vulnerable" state by the UNESCO Red Book of Language Endangerment . The country has

1517-660: The past decades, however, it has been shown that sound change does not necessarily affect all possible words. However, when a sound change is initiated, it often eventually expands to the whole lexicon . For example, the Spanish fronting of the Vulgar Latin [g] ( voiced velar stop ) before [i e ɛ] seems to have reached every possible word. By contrast, the voicing of word-initial Latin [k] to [g] occurred in colaphus > golpe and cattus > gato but not in canna > caña . See also lexical diffusion . Sound change

1558-733: The use of derivational suffixes or the combination of affixes with aspectual meanings with the semantic lexical aspect of different verbs. However, some linguists have suggested that Greenlandic always marks future tense . Another question is whether the language has noun incorporation or whether the processes that create complex predicates that include nominal roots are derivational in nature. When adopting new concepts or technologies, Greenlandic usually constructs new words made from Greenlandic roots, but modern Greenlandic has also taken many loans from Danish and English . The language has been written in Latin script since Danish colonization began in

1599-532: The world . Greenlandic was brought to Greenland by the arrival of the Thule people in the 1200s. The languages that were spoken by the earlier Saqqaq and Dorset cultures in Greenland are unknown. The first descriptions of Greenlandic date from the 1600s. With the arrival of Danish missionaries in the early 1700s and the beginning of Danish colonization of Greenland, the compilation of dictionaries and description of grammar began. The missionary Paul Egede wrote

1640-516: Was once [k] as in di [k] arlo 'of Carlo' but is now [h] di [h] arlo and alternates with [k] in other positions: con [k] arlo 'with Carlo'), that label is inherently imprecise and must often be clarified as referring to either phonemic change or restructuring. Research on sound change is usually conducted under the working assumption that it is regular , which means that it is expected to apply mechanically whenever its structural conditions are met, irrespective of any non-phonological factors like

1681-435: Was written in a complicated orthography devised by the missionary linguist Samuel Kleinschmidt . In 1973, a new orthography was introduced, intended to bring the written language closer to the spoken standard, which had changed considerably since Kleinschmidt's time. The reform was effective, and in the years following it, Greenlandic literacy has received a boost. Another development that has strengthened Greenlandic language

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