Locale Kl Gl

Reference data for the Greenlandic (Greenland) locale — endonym Kalaallisut (Kalaallit Nunaat), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).

Identifiers

• BCP 47 tag: kl-GL
• ISO 639-1: kl
• ISO 639-3: kal
• Script: Latn (Latin)
• Region: GL (Greenland)
• Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 50,000
• L2 (additional): 7,000
• L1+L2 (total): 57,000

Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, other (2 forms).

• one — n = 1 (e.g. 1)
• other — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)

See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.

Translating into this locale

Greenlandic (Kalaallisut, West Greenlandic) is an Eskimo-Aleut language and the sole official language of Greenland. It is polysynthetic: one word can express an entire English sentence. The Oqaasileriffik (Language Secretariat of Greenland) sets the spelling and terminology norm. This guidance is lower-confidence; have a native reviewer check it.

Translate ideas, not words.

• Do not translate word for word. A Greenlandic word is built from a root plus a chain of suffixes (derivational and inflectional), so an English phrase becomes one long word or a short phrase with a rich verb.
• Use Greenlandic terminology from Oqaasileriffik rather than Danish loanwords where a term exists.
• Re-express idioms by meaning.

Grammar.

• The language is ergative: the subject of a transitive verb takes the relative (ergative) case, and the subject of an intransitive verb takes the absolutive case.
• There are no articles or grammatical gender. Nouns have case endings and possessive suffixes; verbs agree with subject and object.
• Number is singular or plural, marked on both nouns and verbs.

Register.

• There is no T-V split: "illit" is "you" (singular) and "ilissi" is "you" (plural). Politeness is carried by tone and phrasing.

Orthography and typography.

• The 1973 reform replaced earlier spelling with a Latin system: the letters q and r represent uvular sounds, and a doubled consonant marks length. Keep the standard spelling.
• Danish loanwords and names use æ, ø, å. Quotation marks »…« or „…“; decimal comma; Danish krone.

Common pitfalls

• Translating word by word, producing stilted compositional forms.
• Using Danish loanwords where an Oqaasileriffik term exists.
• Misspelling long words by splitting or omitting suffixes.

Learn more

• Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
• Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
• Oqaasileriffik, Language Secretariat of Greenland (https://oqaasileriffik.gl)