The language of the Inughuit (Thule Inuit) of Greenland, Inuktun or Polar Eskimo, is a recent arrival and a dialect of Inuktitut.

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.

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.

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.

[14] In November 2024, a mother residing in Denmark whose first language is Greenlandic had her newborn child taken away after she failed a parenting competency test, given in Danish.

[15] Kalaallisut and the other Greenlandic dialects belong to the Eskimo–Aleut family and are closely related to the Inuit languages of Canada and Alaska.

The standard language is based on the central Kalaallisut dialect spoken in Sisimiut in the north, around Nuuk and as far south as Maniitsoq.

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/.

[27] The broad outline of 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[28] (except for a single highly-limited and fossilized demonstrative prefix).

The primary morphosyntactic alignment of full noun phrases in Kalaallisut 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).

[32] In this section, the examples are written in Greenlandic standard orthography except that morpheme boundaries are indicated by a hyphen.

[36] AndaAnda.ABSsini-ppoqsleep-3SG/INDAnda sini-ppoqAnda.ABS sleep-3SG/IND"Anda sleeps"Anda-pAnda-ERGnanoqbear.ABStaku-aasee-3SG/3SGAnda-p nanoq taku-aaAnda-ERG bear.ABS see-3SG/3SG"Anda sees a bear"In transitive clauses whose object and subject are expressed as free noun phrases, the basic pragmatically-neutral word order is SOV / SOXV in which X is a noun phrase in one of the oblique cases.

AndapAndaAtujuuluksweaterOtungujortoqblueXpisiaraaboughtVAndap tujuuluk tungujortoq pisiaraaAnda sweater blue boughtA O X V"Anda bought the blue sweater"An attribute of an incorporated noun appears after the verb: AndaAndaSsanasuuvoqcarpenter-isVpikkorissoqskilledAPPAnda sanasuuvoq pikkorissoqAnda {carpenter-is} skilledS V APP"Anda is a skilled carpenter"Syntactic coordination and subordination is built by combining predicates in the superordinate moods (indicative, interrogative, imperative and optative) with predicates in the subordinate moods (conditional, causative, contemporative and participial).

Consonant gradation like in Finnish appears to occur in the verb conjugation (with strengthening to pp in the 3rd person plural and weakening to v elsewhere).

Apart from the similarities between forms highlighted in bold, Furthermore, if the subject of a transitive verb is 3rd person, the suffix will start with vaa- (with one exception).

The intransitive 2nd person does not have separate interrogative forms after -nngil-, hence e.g. After the future suffix -ssa-, vu- and vo- (both /vu/) change to a-.

[61] qasu-llungabe tired-CONT.1SGangerlar-pungago.home-1SGqasu-llunga angerlar-punga{be tired}-CONT.1SG go.home-1SG"Being tired, I went home"98-inik98-INSTR.PLukio-qar-luniyear-have-CONT.4.SGtoqu-voqdie-3SG98-inik ukio-qar-luni toqu-voq98-INSTR.PL year-have-CONT.4.SG die-3SG"Being 98 years old, he/she died", "he/she was 98 when he/she died"EvaEvaoqar-poqsay-3SGkami-itboot-PLakiler-lugitpay-CONT.3PLEva oqar-poq kami-it akiler-lugitEva say-3SG boot-PL pay-CONT.3PL"Eva said she had paid for the boots"The participial mood is used to construct a subordinate clause describing its subject in the state of carrying out an activity.

"[65]All other things being equal and in the absence of any explicit adverbials, the indicative mood is interpreted as complete or incomplete, depending on the verbal lexical aspect.

"[73]The status of the perfect markers as aspect is not very controversial, but some scholars have claimed that Greenlandic has a basic temporal distinction between future and nonfuture.

[77] Greenlandic has an antipassive voice, which transforms the ergative subject into an absolutive subject and the absolutive object into an instrumental argument; it is formed mostly by the addition of the marker -(s)i- to the verb (the presence of the consonant being mostly phonologically determined, albeit with a few cases of lexically determined distribution) and, in small lexically restricted sets of verbs, by the addition of -nnig- or -ller- (the former being, however, more frequent because it is the one selected by the common verbal element -gi/ri- 'to have as').

[46][79][80][81][82][83] That argument is supported by the fact that many of the derivational morphemes that form denominal verbs work almost identically to canonical noun incorporation.

They allow the formation of words with a semantic content that correspond to an entire English clause with verb, subject and object.

[85][86][87] These examples illustrate how Greenlandic forms complex predicates including nominal roots: qimmeq"dog"+ -qar-"have"qimmeq + -qar-"dog" {} "have"qimme-dog-qar-have-poq3SGqimme- -qar- -poqdog have 3SG"(S)he has a dog"illu"house"+ -lior-"make"illu + -lior-"house" {} "make"illu-house-lior-make-poq3SGillu- -lior- -poqhouse make 3SG"(S)he builds a house"kaffi"coffee"+ -sor-"drink/eat"kaffi + -sor-"coffee" {} "drink/eat"kaffi-coffee-sor-drink/eat-poq3SGkaffi- -sor- -poqcoffee drink/eat 3SG"(S)he drinks coffee"puisi"seal"+ -nniar-"hunt"puisi + -nniar-"seal" {} "hunt"puisi-seal-nniar-hunt-poq3SGpuisi- -nniar- -poqseal hunt 3SG"(S)he hunts seal"allagaq"letter"+ -si-"receive"allagaq + -si-"letter" {} "receive"allagar-letter-si-receive-voq3SGallagar- -si- -voqletter receive 3SG"(S)he has received a letter"anaana"mother"+ -a-"to be"anaana + -a-"mother" {} {"to be"}anaana-mother-a-to be-voq3SGanaana- -a- -voqmother {to be} 3SG"She is a mother"Nouns are always inflected for case and number and sometimes for number and person of possessor.

Singular and plural are distinguished and eight cases are used: absolutive, ergative (relative), instrumental, allative, locative, ablative, prosecutive (also called vialis or prolative) and equative.

[94] illu-muthouse-ALLillu-muthouse-ALL"towards the house"It is also used with numerals and the question word qassit to express the time of the clock and in the meaning "amount per unit": qassi-nut?when-ALL– pingasu-nut.three-ALLqassi-nut?

[95] nakorsatutdoctor-EQUsuli-sar-poqwork-HAB-3SGnakorsatut suli-sar-poqdoctor-EQU work-HAB-3SG"(S)he works as a doctor"Qallunaa-tutdane-EQUQallunaa-tutdane-EQU"Danish language (like a Dane)"In Greenlandic, possession is marked on the noun that agrees with the person and the number of its possessor.

The potential for complex derivations also means that Greenlandic vocabulary is built on very few roots, which, combined with affixes, form large word families.

From 1851 until 1973, Greenlandic was written in an alphabet invented by Samuel Kleinschmidt, which used the kra (⟨ĸ⟩, capitalised ⟨K’⟩) which was replaced by ⟨q⟩ in the 1973 reform.