Learn Greenlandic Through Topics You Care About

LingoBear creates short Greenlandic passages on topics you choose. Tap any word for an instant English translation and build your vocabulary as you read. Eskimo–Aleut (Inuit) language, sole official language of Greenland, Latin script, polysynthetic — one word can express a whole English sentence, ~57,000 speakers.

Tap any word for instant translation

Every word in your Greenlandic reading passage is clickable. Get English translations and grammar help — invaluable for breaking down long polysynthetic words.

Read about topics you choose

Type any topic and LingoBear generates a fresh Greenlandic reading passage — useful when published material is concentrated in Nuuk.

What is Greenlandic and where is it spoken?

Greenlandic (Kalaallisut, 'the Greenlanders' language') is an Eskimo–Aleut language and the sole official language of Greenland since 2009. About 57,000 people speak it. The standard is based on Kalaallisut, the variety of western Greenland; East Greenlandic (Tunumiit) and Polar Eskimo (Inuktun) are distinct dialects, not always mutually intelligible with the standard.

Why is Greenlandic considered hard to learn?

Greenlandic is polysynthetic — a single word can stack a root, multiple derivational suffixes and inflectional endings to express what English needs a whole sentence for. The often-cited example tusaatassagaluartussaagaluarpunga 'although I should have indeed heard it' is built from a handful of morphemes. It also uses ergative–absolutive case marking and has no grammatical gender.