Below is a brief summary by Alex Payne, who recently attended a Greenlandic course with LearnGreenlandic. Alex’ visit was supported by SSNS through a Postgraduate/Early Career Research Grant.
In the Autumn term 2024 I undertook the Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) 1 online course with LearnGreenlandic taught by Liv Molich. The course was an essential and informative grounding in the grammar, pronunciation, and present/past indicative sentence structure of the language.
Liv is a patient and highly competent teacher with a research background in Greenlandic linguistics and language acquisition. With this experience she is always providing helpful hints and caveats that demonstrate the vibrancy and variety of the language.
It is a high intensity course that covers a lot of ground quickly. Thus, I recommend anyone considering the course ensure they have sufficient time to devote to homework exercises and vocab lists outside of lecture hours.
The course itself is of great value to my research into Greenlandic folktales/histories. It is my belief that as a researcher discussing Indigenous communities of the Arctic it is my responsibility to engage with the languages of the region on a level deeper than has previously been considered acceptable in Arctic studies. To that end I intend to continue with the higher levels of the course in the future as I believe it is a sound investment into my research skillset within my subfield.
To that end I would like to thank the Scottish Society for Northern Studies for providing me with this opportunity.
- Alex Payne, 28 December 2024
(Header Photo: B. Hertling, “Greenlandic for travelers”)