Tunumiisut

Tunumiisut
tunumiisut
Native to	East Greenland
Ethnicity	Tunumiit
Native speakers	(3,000–3,500 cited 1995)
Language family	Eskaleut Eskimo Inuit Greenlandic Tunumiisut
Early forms	Proto-Eskimo–Aleut Proto-Eskimo Proto-Inuit
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	tunu1234
IETF	kl-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

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. 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.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i iː	u uː
Open	a aː

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Uvular
		plain	lateral
Nasal	m	n			ŋ	ɴ
Plosive/ Affricate	p	t		(t͡ɕ)	k	q
Fricative	v	s			ɣ	ʁ
Approximant			l	j

The following sounds may also occur as geminated; /pː, tː, kː, qː, sː, mː, nː, ŋː/.

• /v/ may be heard as either [v], [β], [w] or [ɥ].

• /l/ may also be heard as [d] in initial positions.

• Sounds /s, sː/ may also be heard as palatalized sounds [ɕ, t͡ɕ] when in palatal positions.

• Sounds /k/ and /q/ may also have intervocalic allophones as [x, ɣ] and [χ, ʁ].

• Nasals /ŋ, ɴ/ can be heard as nasalized fricatives [ɣ̃, ʁ̃] in various environments.