When I developed the DVD-s back in 2009-11 there was quite a lot I wanted to include but had to let be. First and foremost were my possibilities for introducing connected, natural speech extremely limited because free speech back then could not be made self-controlling and therefore impossible to include into a system that has to fit not only for class-room activities but also be useable for self-study.
Achievements in Greenlandic language technology since then have paved the way for brand new facilities that are now included in the system.
The first results are the X-marked exercises you are about to embark upon. They introduce free speech right from the beginning. Frankly, they constitute a brand new L2 system that though intimately integrated in the original material focus on capacities the original system could not address.
It is not good for the man to be alone. This is true also when one acquires a new L2. We know from experience that next to nobody manages to acquire Greenlandic without a buddy. All instructions and pieces of advice presuppose a fixed procedure that include at least two learners studying together. Here is an outline of a weekly routine:
As already mentioned, the X-exercises introduce and practice material that has not been introduced in the old system. You therefore must work your way through the X-introductions just as thoroughly as you do with all other types of L2 text book or digital system. The system base on a strict linear progression so if you take this too lightly you will be unable to hang on after only a few chapters. I know that from experience.
If you on the other hand invest like 20-30 minutes to make sure that everything in the introductions is fully understood the progression will be an open gate for you. That, too, I know from experience!
17 proper nouns (henceforward Prop) all of them place names and 2 inflectional endings. Put together they will generate 51 words. You will train your perception and production of them all the next few hours.
And you will be going with the necessary process of internalising the general sound changes that play a part in all Greenlandic words.
Because Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language where words change their shapes and sounds all the time.
Acquiring Greenlandic therefore is not just a question of learning new words as you did when you learned other L2's like German or Spanish but much, much more a question of achieving the ability to recognize the words you know in their ever-changing shapes and to be able to produce these changes yourself whenever you create words and sentences out of the lexicon-words and endings you learned.
A concrete example: In the next chapter you will meet your firt verb, aallarpunga/I leave. You will meet aallarpunga only once per 32,445 running words in connected Greenlandic. That is much too seldom for you to acquire the word the natural way as you did when you acquired for instance Je pars when you learned French.
That is exactly the reason why you will not focus on aallarpunga (and most other new stems you will be introduced to) as full wordforms. Instead you will learn that the stem aallar- though unuseable as such means 'to leave' and gradually become acquainted to the sound rules at work whenever endings and affixes are added to aallar-.
You will soon realize that you see the stem aallar-, very frequently. As a matter of facts you will find it about once per 300 running words. That is more than sufficient for you to acquire aallar- naturally without major problems.
Accordingly, new words are not always your best friends in acquiring Greenlandic. Rather, you will learn to recognize the bits and pieces of language you are introduced to in their ever-changing shapes and experience the magic when you find yourself able to generate words and sentences correctly once you have heard and understood the individual bits and pieces a dozen of times or so.
17 important place names
Of these Aasiaat, Paamiut and Sisimiut are blocked for inflection because they are plural words. To add inflectional endings one needs to do so to the baseform in singular. You will find the baseform after the colon. Please observe that such baseforms not necessarily are useable words in the exact form without extra linguistic material.
It should also be noted that Greenland is inflected already. Literally Kalaallit Nunaat means "The Greenlanders' their land" with an inflectional ending {at} meaning "plural possessors' singular possession".
Observe also that 'plus' or 'minus' after the words cover information you need to learn together with the stems. '+' and '-' will be explained hereunder.
Two inflectional endings
Trm = {mut} or {nut} (case terminalis "to-case". mut-variety after uinflected words and nut-variety after words already inflected
Abl = {mit} or {nit} (case ablative "from-case". mit-variety after uinflected words and nit-variety after words already inflected
Proper nouns like all other nominal stems fall in two groups. Some stems retain their final consonant before endings whereas other drop them. Stems marked with minus are consonant droppers whereas stems marked with plus are consonant retaining stems. The two inflectional classes are called p-stems and up-stems named after the shape the words have in case relative (used for instance as genitive).
You will need to learn whether a given noun is a p-stem or an up-stem simultaneously with acquisition of any noun in the lexicon. But again do not panic. Getting to know whether a noun is a p-stem or an up-stem is not at all more complicated than remembering gender with all the nouns you acquired in other foreign languages (French? German?).
Example:
"to Qaqortoq" Qaqortoq-mut ➔ Qaqorto mut (Qaqortumut) and "from Nanortalik" Nanortalik+mit ➔ Nanortalik mit (Nanortalimmit)
Sound changes:
Whenever language material meets with other material some kind of change is likely to occur. The first few general rules you will need to master come here:
Lowering vowels: u ➔ o when followed by /r/ or /q/ and is pronounced [ɔ] like -or- in horse. And vice versa: If /r/ or /q/ after an o disappears o ceases to be an o and regains its /u/-shape.
Example: *Qaqortoq-mut ➔ Qaqortumut
Consonant assimilation: Whenever two consonants meet the first assimilates to the second and form two identical consonants.
Examples: *Aasiak+nut ➔ Aasiannut; *Nanortalik+mut ➔ Nanortalimmut
With /r/ this assimilation also takes place but is not reflected in writing. Qaqortoq is written with -rt- even though it is pronounced with two t-s like [qɑ qɔt tɔq].
Orthographic rule about /q/ in clusters: /q/ followed by any consonant but /q/ itself will be written as /r/ - but the /r/ will of course be pronounced like the following consonant in accordance with the assimilation rule above. Hence Kangerlussuaq+mut ➔ Kangerlussuarmut [ka ŋȝɬ ɬus su ɑm mut] where the first /a/ is narroq as English have wheras the second /a/ is widely open as om English hard.