Learning Greenlandic book review #1: Qaagit!
So far: Text lesson #1, Text Lesson #2 , Text Lesson #3 and Text Lesson #4
Hope you’ve enjoyed the text “lessons” above, and maybe you’ve even worked your way through @learngreenlandic’s fantastic 10 introductory lessons. So perhaps you’re wondering, what else can you do to self-study Greenlandic? I’m assuming here you may not be in-country and have regular access to native speakers…
So I’m going to take you through some of the materials that I have been using. Let’s start with Qaagit! [Come here!], by Birgitte Hertling and Pia Rosen Heilmann, which is probably the most obvious starting point for self-study, as it is one of the easier books to get hold of.
It has graded dialogues (with a sweet story arc), exercises and fun pictures with colloquial language. Unlike a number of the other, older self-study texts out there, it’s in the “new” orthography (i.e. post-1973!), so a good starting point.
The main issue with Qaagit! is that it was really designed for Danish ex-pats doing classroom work (in Greenland) with a real Greenlandic teacher. This is not unreasonable, of course, given they are the most likely people who would have the need for such a course. However, it does mean that this book is not suitable, on its own, for private study, like the Teach Yourself series of books. However, in conjunction with a few other materials, like a good dictionary and a grammar (which I’ll cover in later posts), you can still learn a lot from this book.
I originally got the book with its tapes (!) (now converted to MP3s of course), and you can get CDs now. As well as having the dialogues read out, they also have some nice songs. There is also an accompanying answer book with full translations for the dialogues.
Did I mention yet that all the non-Greenlandic text and dialogue is in Danish?
The thing is, whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s impossible to learn Greenlandic without knowing Danish, it’s probably going to be an extremely tricky endeavour. It would be a bit like trying to learn Scottish Gaelic without English, or Ainu without Japanese (... reblog and add your own pair...). The reality is that to have any chance of getting anywhere you will need to also get yourself fairly proficient at Danish (at least at a good reading level), not least because it’s essentially the second language of any Greenlanders you are likely to meet, as well as being the default way to express any numbers over 12…
Want to buy it new? You can make an order at Atuagkat Boghandel, based in Greenland, and wait anxiously for the airmail to arrive, as I did 20 years ago. Some Danish online booksellers may also stock it. Second-hand options may be possible via antiquarian booksellers online. I also came across an ex-learner online recently who had this one up for sale with its tapes, so if you’re interested I can maybe put you in touch with them.