Talk:Greenlandic language

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	Greenlandic language was one of the Language and literature good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result March 25, 2010 Good article nominee Listed September 22, 2020 Good article reassessment Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

This article is somewhat misleading since it paints this picture of an exotic, unique ergativity, while, in fact, greenlandic has a rather limited ergativity. It is basically nominative-accusative and the ergativity only comes up in nouns, not even the third person agreement. They should clarify this. (Furthermore, that sort of defective/limited/split ergativity happens all over the world whether because it is limited to the third person, or to nouns, or to finite verbs, or to one tense, or to definite objects.)

The article follows the sources, and the sources unanimously consider Greenlandic simply an ergative language. I have not read a single source calling Greenlandic "basically nominative-accusative".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:26, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, no, Greenlandic isn't 'nominative-accusative in verb marking'. The intransitive subject and the transitive subject are not marked in the same way, which is what 'nominative-accusative' would entail. Instead, there are portmanteau transitive verb endings for different combinations of subject and object and to the extent that they can be analysed into component parts, they more or less reflect an ergative principle - the intransitive subject and the transitive object appear to be marked in the same way, as the table in the article shows. And with third person objects, things are quite clear: the ergative participant is marked in the same way as the possessor of a noun, quite in parallel with the use of the genitive as an ergative case in nouns (this is pointed out in Nielsen's Vestgrønlandsk grammatik and should probably be mentioned in this article, too).

As for pronouns, what the unsigned user mentions are really instances of morphological syncretism of the absolutive and the ergative, but not of a situation where an 'accusative' (a direct object) is treated differently from both intransitive and transitive subjects, which is what would make it an indubitable example of split ergativity. Compare this to, say, Sumerian, Middle Persian, Kurdish, Hindi, Middle Aramaic, Basque, Georgian, where a nominative-accusative principle is much more obvious in parts of the grammar. Some of the few prominent non-split languages that come to mind are Hurrian and Quiché.

And yes, 'this sort of defective/limited/split ergativity happens all over the world', but only in the sense that ergative languages tend to have parts of the grammar where the alignment is nominative-accusative, not in the sense that nominative-accusative languages tend to have some ergativity. So the fact that it happens all over the world is precisely why the presence of some 'limits' on ergativity in Greenlandic wouldn't have been a reason to downplay it - having some 'limits' on ergativity is so common that if we counted only wholly consistent ergative languages as 'ergative' ones, there'd be very few left. But, as I said, Greenlandic is actually unusual for an ergative language in the extent to which it does not deviate from ergativity in favour of accusativity. --87.126.21.225 (talk) 20:01, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Western Greenlandic. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 9#Western Greenlandic until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 12:50, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Kalaalisut. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 9#Kalaalisut until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 12:51, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The text states that "all non-nasal consonants in a cluster are voiceless", which means that /v, ʝ~ɣ, ʁ, l/ become [f, ç~x, χ, ɬ]. Accordingly the words "ueqarpoq" and "illoqarpoq" should be transcribed in narrow form as [ueqɑχpɔq] and [iɬːoqɑχpɔq] with [χ] rather than [ʁ]. Right? 90.186.83.177 (talk) 12:58, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oqaasileriffik transcribes them with [pp]: https://oqaasileriffik.gl/oqaaserpassualerineq/ipa/. 2A02:2121:2C3:20A7:E4B8:D29D:C6D8:8C4B (talk) 18:20, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This article says (here and here) that the native name of Greenlandic is kalaallisut, but this is incorrect. kalaallisut is the native name of the dialect of Greenlandic spoken by the Kalaallit in West Greenland (known in English as West Greenlandic); the literal translation of kalaallisut is "language of the Kalaallit". Strangely enough, Greenlandic doesn't have a native name (as far as I know at least). There should be an editnotice for this article to prevent editors who don't know any better from adding kalaallisut back as the native name of Greenlandic, as it is a common misconception. – Treetoes023 (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Pinging relevant Wikipedia (members of WikiProject Greenland) – (@Valjean, Valentinian, Badbilltucker, Maunus, Keesiewonder, Thedec, KHarber, Jensbn, Nidator, Leitz, Hamiltonstone, Allstrak, Uyvsdi, Kuba.greenland, Wabba The I, Loopygrumpkins, Spongie555, Angelikfire, Ahalenia, Titodutta, Jakeybean, Exoplanetaryscience, Coin Collecting John, Pmt, Buaidh, Xufanc, AusLondonder, PolarFlyer, Fmrauch, LloydGrasm3, Thanoscar21, Eru Rōraito, Chongkian, Kaffe42, and AdoroCibo:) – Treetoes023 (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• (Responding as someone who knows almost nothing about it, but reasoning it out using deduction and inference to try to zoom in on what the situation is.) Not only are you right, but the body of the article says you are. Kalaallisut is even one of the two dialects listed in the infobox. It's so clearly contradictory that I've removed the two instances you pointed out that conflict with the facts. The articles does supply a minor defense of the usage, where it says The name Kalaallisut is often used as a cover term for all of Greenlandic. However, for the article to use it that way at the same time that it tells us at length that it's only one of the dialects is a problem.

Regarding a native term to refer to the language overall, or to a standard variety of it, the article does say that "The standard language is based on the central Kalaallisut dialect spoken ...". This implies that a standard is recognized, so surely they give it a name. The English translation I found of Chapter 7 (titled "Language") of the 2009 Act on Greenland Self-Government says, in its entirety, "Greenlandic shall be the official language in Greenland." I wonder how this reads in the Greenlandic version. Largoplazo (talk) 21:48, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• West Greenlandic/Kalaallisut is the de facto standard language, and Kalaallisut is in most contexts translated as simply "Greenlandic", with "West" only added when specifically contrasting with Inuktun and Tunumiit Oraasiaat.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:24, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]