Editing Inuit languages (section)

=== Greenland ===
{{further|Greenlandic language}}

[[Greenland]] counts approximately 50,000 speakers of the Inuit languages, over 90% of whom speak west Greenlandic dialects at home.
*Kalaallisut, [[Greenlandic language|Greenlandic]] in English, is the standard dialect and official language of Greenland. This standard national language has been taught to all Greenlanders since schools were established, regardless of their native dialect. It reflects almost exclusively the language of western Greenland and has borrowed a great deal of vocabulary from Danish (in contrast the Canadian and Alaskan Inuit languages have tended to borrow from English, French or Russian). It is written using the Latin script. The dialect of the [[Upernavik]] area in northwest Greenland is somewhat different in phonology from the standard dialect.
*Tunumiit oraasiat, the [[Tunumiit dialect]] (or Tunumiisut in Greenlandic, often East Greenlandic in other languages), is the dialect of eastern Greenland. It differs sharply from other Inuit language variants and has roughly 3000 speakers according to Ethnologue.<ref name="Greenlandic">{{cite web|title=Greenlandic|url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kal|website=Ethnologue}}</ref>
*[[Inuktun]] (Or Avanersuarmiutut in Greenlandic) is the dialect of the area around [[Qaanaaq]] in northern Greenland. It is sometimes called the Thule dialect or North Greenlandic. This area is the northernmost settlement area of the Inuit and has a relatively small number of speakers. It is reputed to be fairly close to the [[North Baffin dialect]], since a group of migratory Inuit from [[Baffin Island]] settled in the area during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It counts under 1000 speakers according to Ethnologue.<ref name="Greenlandic" />

Greenlandic was strongly supported by the Danish Christian mission (conducted by the Danish state church) in Greenland. Several major dictionaries were created, beginning with Poul Egedes's {{lang|la|Dictionarium Grönlandico-danico-latinum}} (1750) and culminating with Samuel Kleinschmidt's (1871) {{lang|da|Den grønlandske ordbog}} ('The Greenlandic Dictionary'), which contained a Greenlandic grammatical system that has formed the basis of modern Greenlandic grammar. Together with the fact that until 1925 Danish was not taught in the public schools, these policies had the consequence that Greenlandic has always and continues to enjoy a very strong position in Greenland, both as a spoken as well as written language.