Tunumiisut (lit.'language of the Tunumiit'), also known as East Greenlandic (Danish: østgrønlandsk), is the language of the Tunumiit in East Greenland. It is generally categorised as a dialect of Greenlandic, but verges on being a distinct language.[2][3] The largest town where it is the primary language is Tasiilaq on Ammassalik Island, with the island's name being derived from the West Greenlandic name of the town.

Tunumiisut
tunumiisut
Native toEast Greenland
EthnicityTunumiit
Native speakers
(3,000–3,500 cited 1995)[1]
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottologtunu1234
IETFkl-tunumiit
Map of the Inuit languages; Tunumiisut is grey.
East Greenlandic is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

References

edit
  1. ^ 3,000 in Greenland, and perhaps 20% more in Denmark. Greenlandic at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)  
  2. ^ Nicole Tersis, in Variations on polysynthesis: the Eskaleut languages Ch. 4
  3. ^ Mennecier, Philippe (1995). Le tunumiisut, dialecte inuit du Groenland oriental: description et analyse. Collection linguistique, 78 (in French). Société de linguistique de Paris, Peeters Publishers.