Greenland 2014

Although Icelandic is officially acknowledged to be the most difficult language of the world, Icelanders and Greenlanders will readily admit that Greenlandic is far more difficult to learn, speak, and write than Icelandic.

Icelanders and Greenlanders must communicate in Danish, their common mother tongue.

Most public signs, (the above sign was photographed in a public city bus in Nuuk, Greenland) are in Greenlandic, followed by Danish.   The text in the bus reads:

"Sikut, Nerisassat imigassallu bussip iluani nereqqusaanngillat is, mad og drikkevarer ma ikke nydes i vogen"

Ice cream, food and drink may not be enjoyed in the car.

Greenlandic is known for its use of double letters: (qq-aa-nn-ll). "Nereqqusaanngillat" translates:  "eating may not."

Greenland, with its 55,000 inhabitants is the size of Texas....times three!  Nuuk, the capitol of Greenland currently has 16,000 inhabitants.

"Greenlandic belongs to a totally different family of languages from English and Danish.  In the Greenlandic language, sounds, words and sentence structure are very different from Germanic, Latin and other languages. "Greenland has three main Inuit dialects.  There is Western Greenlandic, which is spoken from the southern tip of Greenland up to Upernavik.  Each region has its own sub-dialect but people can easily communicate, just like in the USA where almost every state has its own dialect, but the inhabitants can still communicate with people from other states.

"In Qaanaaq, the area north of Upernavik and north of the Thule Airbase people speak a very different Greenlandic which is not readily understood by people who are not used to listening to it.  The same goes for the East Coast of Greenland. East Greenlandic is different from West Greenlandic, but still an Inuit language."   ~   Grace Nielsen

Our outstanding guide, Grace Nielsen, spoke impeccable English without a trace of an accent.   Grace grew up in Greenland for the most part, but was born in Finland, spent first childhood years in Sweden, then Greenland and lived for a while in Denmark as an adult. Grace's mom was from Minnesota, daughter of descendants of Swedish and German/English immigrants and her father was a native Dane, but when tracing that family tree on her father’s side, found ancestors from Holland and the German part of the Check Republic.  Today her family includes the following nationalities: Danish, Swedish, native Greenlandic, American, South American, Faroese, Dutch, German and Japanese. Her Swedish nephew just married a girl from Japan.

                                                Grace J. Heindorf Nielsen
                                                P.O. Box 1204
                                                DK-3900 Nuuk, Greenland
                                                Home: +299 32 3083
                                                Cell: +299 48 225 02
                                                grace@greennet.gl