Misplaced Pages

#125874

54-443: In Greenlandic , Aasiaat means "Spiders" ( Danish : Edderkopper ). The exact explanation for this is yet to be determined because of the lack of historical facts of the origin of the name. The most common assumption is that when the town was founded as a settlement, spiders were abundant. Alternatively it might be a relic of Inuit mythology, wherein spiders bring good luck. Similar to the rest of Greenland, spiders are rarely seen in

108-562: A desert , or so called polar desert ), averaging 166 millimetres (6.5 in) of precipitation per year, as weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent. Summits of most mountains also have polar climates, despite being in lower latitudes, due to their high elevations. All mountains of the Rocky Mountains , Alps , and the Caucasus have tundra climate. Some mountains of the Andes ,

162-635: A 100% literacy rate. As the Western Greenlandic standard has become dominant, a UNESCO report has labelled the other dialects as endangered, and measures are now being considered to protect the Eastern Greenlandic dialect. Kalaallisut and the other Greenlandic dialects belong to the Eskimo–Aleut family and are closely related to the Inuit languages of Canada and Alaska . Illustration 1 shows

216-551: A lack of warm summers but with varying winters . Every month a polar climate has an average temperature of less than 10 °C (50 °F). Regions with a polar climate cover more than 20% of the Earth's area. Most of these regions are far from the equator and near the poles , and in this case, winter days are extremely short and summer days are extremely long (they could last for the entirety of each season or longer). A polar climate consists of cool summers and very cold winters (or, in

270-508: A polar climate. Climatologist Wladimir Köppen demonstrated a relationship between the Arctic and Antarctic tree lines and the 10 °C (50 °F) summer isotherm; i.e., places where the average temperature in the warmest calendar month of the year is below the fixed threshold of 10 °C (50 °F) cannot support forests. See Köppen climate classification for more information. Otto Nordenskjöld theorized that winter conditions also play

324-455: A role: His formula is W = 9 − 0.1 C , where W is the average temperature in the warmest month and C the average of the coldest month, both in degrees Celsius. For example, if a particular location had an average temperature of −20 °C (−4 °F) in its coldest month, the warmest month would need to average 11 °C (52 °F) or higher for trees to be able to survive there as 9 − 0.1(−20) = 11 . Nordenskiöld's line tends to run to

378-410: Is ergative , treating both the argument (subject) of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb in one way, but the subject of a transitive verb in another. For example, " he plays the guitar" would be in the ergative case as a transitive agent, whereas "I bought a guitar " and "as the guitar plays" (the latter being the intransitive sense of the same verb "to play") would both be in

432-567: Is ergative-absolutive , but verbal morphology follows a nominative-accusative pattern and pronouns are syntactically neutral. The language distinguishes four persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th or 3rd reflexive (see Obviation and switch-reference ); two numbers (singular and plural but no dual , unlike Inuktitut); eight moods (indicative, interrogative, imperative, optative, conditional, causative, contemporative and participial) and eight cases (absolutive, ergative, equative, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative and prolative). Greenlandic (including

486-490: Is above 0 °C (32 °F), while an ice cap climate has no months averaging above 0 °C (32 °F). In a tundra climate, even coniferous trees cannot grow, but other specialized plants such as the arctic poppy can grow. In an ice cap climate, no plants can grow, and ice gradually accumulates until it flows or slides elsewhere. Many high altitude locations on Earth have a climate where no month has an average temperature of 10 °C (50 °F) or higher, but as this

540-586: Is almost surrounded by landmasses like Russia and Canada . As such, the climate of much of the Arctic is moderated by the ocean water, which can never have a temperature below −2 °C (28 °F). In winter, this relatively warm water, even though covered by the polar ice pack , keeps the North Pole from being the coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere , and it is also part of the reason that Antarctica

594-579: Is an Eskimo–Aleut language with about 57,000 speakers, mostly Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland . It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuktitut . It is the most widely spoken Eskimo–Aleut language. In June 2009, the government of Greenland, the Naalakkersuisut , made Greenlandic the sole official language of the autonomous territory, to strengthen it in the face of competition from

SECTION 10

#1732848454126

648-435: Is contrastive only in loanwords . The alveolar stop /t/ is pronounced as an affricate [t͡s] before the high front vowel /i/ . Often, Danish loanwords containing ⟨b d g⟩ preserve these in writing, but that does not imply a change in pronunciation, for example ⟨baaja⟩ [paːja] "beer" and ⟨Guuti⟩ [kuːtˢi] "God"; these are pronounced exactly as /p t k/ . The broad outline of

702-478: Is due to elevation, this climate is referred to as Alpine climate . Alpine climate can mimic either tundra or ice cap climate. On Earth, the only continent where the ice cap polar climate is predominant is Antarctica . All but a few isolated coastal areas on the island of Greenland also have the ice cap climate. Summits of many high mountains also have ice cap climate due to their high elevation. Coastal regions of Greenland that do not have permanent ice sheets have

756-525: Is fronted to [ʉ] between two coronal consonants. The allophonic lowering of /i/ and /u/ before uvular consonants is shown in the modern orthography by writing /i/ and /u/ as ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ respectively before ⟨q⟩ and ⟨r⟩ . For example: The palatal sibilant [ʃ] has merged with [s] in all dialects except those of the Sisimiut – Maniitsoq – Nuuk – Paamiut area. The labiodental fricative [f]

810-433: Is notable for its lack of grammatical tense ; temporal relations are expressed normally by context but also by the use of temporal particles such as "yesterday" or "now" or sometimes by the use of derivational suffixes or the combination of affixes with aspectual meanings with the semantic lexical aspect of different verbs. However, some linguists have suggested that Greenlandic always marks future tense . Another question

864-432: Is so much colder than the Arctic. In summer, the presence of the nearby water keeps coastal areas from warming as much as they might otherwise, just as it does in temperate regions with maritime climates . The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. Antarctica has the lowest naturally occurring temperature ever recorded: −93.3 °C (−135.9 °F) at Vostok Station . It is also extremely dry (technically

918-421: Is the most innovative by further simplifying its structure by eliding /n/ . The Greenlandic three- vowel system, composed of /i/ , /u/ , and /a/ , is typical for an Eskimo–Aleut language. Double vowels are analyzed as two morae and so they are phonologically a vowel sequence and not a long vowel. They are also orthographically written as two vowels. There is only one diphthong, /ai/ , which occurs only at

972-466: Is the most innovative of the Greenlandic dialects since it has assimilated consonant clusters and vowel sequences more than West Greenlandic. Kalaallisut is further divided into four subdialects. One that is spoken around Upernavik has certain similarities to East Greenlandic, possibly because of a previous migration from eastern Greenland. A second dialect is spoken in the region of Uummannaq and

1026-609: Is the only word that is required in a sentence. Since verbs inflect for number and person of both subject and object, the verb is in fact a clause itself. Therefore, clauses in which all participants are expressed as free-standing noun phrases are rather rare. The following examples show the possibilities of leaving out the verbal arguments: Sini-ppoq sleep- 3SG / IND Sini-ppoq sleep-3SG/IND "(S)he sleeps" Angut man. ABS sinippoq sleep- 3SG / IND Angut sinippoq man.ABS sleep-3SG/IND Polar climate The polar climate regions are characterized by

1080-613: Is the policy of "Greenlandization" of Greenlandic society that began with the home rule agreement of 1979. The policy has worked to reverse the former trend towards marginalization of the Greenlandic language by making it the official language of education. The fact that Greenlandic has become the only language used in primary schooling means that monolingual Danish-speaking parents in Greenland are now raising children bilingual in Danish and Greenlandic. Greenlandic now has several dedicated news media:

1134-483: Is whether the language has noun incorporation or whether the processes that create complex predicates that include nominal roots are derivational in nature. When adopting new concepts or technologies, Greenlandic usually constructs new words made from Greenlandic roots, but modern Greenlandic has also taken many loans from Danish and English . The language has been written in Latin script since Danish colonization began in

SECTION 20

#1732848454126

1188-536: The British Isles to use Greenlandic, Icelandic , and Scottish airspace . A result of World War II was the fact that Denmark , under the control of Nazi Germany , could not freely send supplies to Greenland; this task fell to the United States and Canada . Supplies were stored near Aasiaat, and were then transferred to other towns of the region, such as Uummannaq and Sisimiut . Aasiaat has grown much since

1242-603: The Disko Bay . The standard language is based on the central Kalaallisut dialect spoken in Sisimiut in the north, around Nuuk and as far south as Maniitsoq . Southern Kalaallisut is spoken around Narsaq and Qaqortoq in the south. Table 1 shows the differences in the pronunciation of the word for "humans" in the two main dialects and Inuktun. It can be seen that Inuktun is the most conservative by maintaining ⟨gh⟩ , which has been elided in Kalaallisut, and Tunumiisut

1296-620: The Drake Passage ) and such subantarctic islands such as the South Shetland Islands and the Falkland Islands have tundra climates of slight temperature range in which no month is as warm as 10 °C (50 °F). These subantarctic lowlands are found closer to the equator than the coastal tundras of the Arctic basin. Summits of many mountains of Earth also have polar climates, due to their higher elevations. Some parts of

1350-839: The Saint Elias Mountains , and most mountains of the Himalayas , the Karakoram , the Hindu Kush Range , Pamir Mountains , the Tian Shan Mountains , and the Alaska Range also have ice cap climates at extremely high elevations, in addition to tundra climates at relatively lower elevations. Only the summit of Mount Rainier has an ice cap climate in the Cascade Range . There have been several attempts at quantifying what constitutes

1404-513: The colonial language , Danish . The main variety is Kalaallisut , or West Greenlandic. The second variety is Tunumiit oraasiat , or East Greenlandic. The language of the Inughuit (Thule Inuit) of Greenland, Inuktun or Polar Eskimo, is a recent arrival and a dialect of Inuktitut . Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots and suffixes . The language's morphosyntactic alignment

1458-404: The 1700s. Greenlandic's first orthography was developed by Samuel Kleinschmidt in 1851, but within 100 years, it already differed substantially from the spoken language because of a number of sound changes . An extensive orthographic reform was undertaken in 1973 and made the script much easier to learn. This resulted in a boost in Greenlandic literacy , which is now among the highest in

1512-470: The 1770s. Aasiaat saw much growth in the first half of the 20th century. In 1932, the town opened the first school in the country which allowed women to obtain secondary education. One of its first graduates was the first woman novelist of Greenland, Mâliâraq Vebæk , who was valedictorian of her graduating class in 1934. On May 3, 1940, a treaty signed in Godhavn allowed American relief airplanes bound for

1566-471: The Antarctic under Köppen's. In 1947, Holdridge improved on these schemes , by defining biotemperature : the mean annual temperature, where all temperatures below 0 °C or 32 °F (and above 30 °C or 86 °F) are treated as 0 °C (because it makes no difference to plant life, being dormant). If the mean biotemperature is between 1.5 and 3 °C (34.7 and 37.4 °F), Holdridge quantifies

1620-602: The Arctic are covered by ice ( sea ice , glacial ice , or snow ) year-round, especially at the most poleward parts; and nearly all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice or snow on the surface. Average January temperatures range from about −40 to 0 °C (−40 to 32 °F), and winter temperatures can drop below −50 °C (−58 °F) over large parts of the Arctic. Average July temperatures range from about −10 to 10 °C (14 to 50 °F), with some land areas occasionally exceeding 30 °C (86 °F) in summer. The Arctic consists of ocean that

1674-483: The Greenlandic National Radio, Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa , which provides television and radio programming in Greenlandic. The newspaper Sermitsiaq has been published since 1958 and merged in 2010 with the other newspaper Atuagagdliutit/Grønlandsposten , which had been established in 1861 to form a single large Greenlandic language publishing house. Before June 2009, Greenlandic shared its status as

Aasiaat - Misplaced Pages Continue

1728-507: The Greenlandic grammar is similar to other Eskimo languages, on the morpholological and syntactic plan. The morphology of Greenlandic is highly synthetic and exclusively suffixing (except for a single highly-limited and fossilized demonstrative prefix). The language creates very long words by means of adding strings of suffixes to a stem. In principle, there is no limit to the length of a Greenlandic word, but in practice, words with more than six derivational suffixes are not so frequent, and

1782-509: The Qeqertalik municipality. The population has fluctuated considerably over the last two decades, decreasing 3% relative to the 2001 levels and increasing more than 10% relative to the 2008 levels. Aasiaat has four schools: a regular school (Gammeqarfik), a highschool (GU-Aasiaat), a vocational school (Piarersarfik), and a school for the mentally disabled (Ado Lyngep Atuarfia). Fishing of shrimp and crabs , shipbuilding , and tourism are

1836-537: The absolutive case. Nouns are inflected by one of eight cases and for possession. Verbs are inflected for one of eight moods and for the number and person of its subject and object . Both nouns and verbs have complex derivational morphology. The basic word order in transitive clauses is subject–object–verb . The subordination of clauses uses special subordinate moods. A so-called fourth-person category enables switch-reference between main clauses and subordinate clauses with different subjects. Greenlandic

1890-495: The average number of morphemes per word is three to five. The language has between 400 and 500 derivational suffixes and around 318 inflectional suffixes. There are few compound words but many derivations. The grammar uses a mixture of head and dependent marking . Both agent and patient are marked on the predicate, and the possessor is marked on nouns, with dependent noun phrases inflecting for case. The primary morphosyntactic alignment of full noun phrases in Kalaallisut

1944-464: The case of ice cap climates, no real summer at all), which results in treeless tundras , glaciers , or a permanent or semi-permanent layer of ice . It is identified with the letter E in the Köppen climate classification . There are two types of polar climate: ET , or tundra climate ; and EF , or ice cap climate . A tundra climate is characterized by having at least one month whose average temperature

1998-674: The country and Disko Bay region, as well as the Air Greenland hub in Kangerlussuaq . Air Iceland occasionally arrange charter flights for the travel industry. Aasiaat has several recurrent events which engage most of the inhabitants and visitors. "Maaji-mi Peqqissuusa" (let's stay healthy in May) is an arrangement with focus on activities which will improve one's health and is based on volunteer organizers. Aasiaat Midnightsun Marathon takes place in late June with different distances with start/finish in

2052-767: The eastern Tunumiisut variety) is the only Eskimo language having lost its dual. Verbs carry a bipersonal inflection for subject and object. Possessive noun phrases inflect for both possessor and case. In this section, the examples are written in Greenlandic standard orthography except that morpheme boundaries are indicated by a hyphen. Greenlandic distinguishes three open word classes : nouns , verbs and particles . Verbs inflect for person and number of subject and object as well as for mood. Nouns inflect for possession and for case. Particles do not inflect. Oqar-poq say- 3SG / IND Oqar-poq say-3SG/IND "(S)he says" Angut man. ABS Angut man.ABS "A man" Naamik No Naamik No "No" The verb

2106-428: The ends of words. Before a uvular consonant ( /q/ or /ʁ/ ), /i/ is realized allophonically as [e] , [ɛ] or [ɐ] , and /u/ is realized allophonically as [o] or [ɔ] , and the two vowels are written ⟨e, o⟩ respectively (as in some orthographies used for Quechua and Aymara ). /a/ becomes retracted to [ɑ] in the same environment. /i/ is rounded to [y] before labial consonants. /u/

2160-468: The first Greenlandic dictionary in 1750 and the first grammar in 1760. From the Danish colonization in the 1700s to the beginning of Greenlandic home rule in 1979, Greenlandic experienced increasing pressure from the Danish language. In the 1950s, Denmark's linguistic policies were directed at strengthening Danish. Of primary significance was the fact that post-primary education and official functions were conducted in Danish. From 1851 to 1973, Greenlandic

2214-568: The less extreme tundra climates. The northernmost part of the Eurasian land mass, from the extreme northeastern coast of Scandinavia and eastwards to the Bering Strait , large areas of northern Siberia and northern Iceland have tundra climate as well. Large areas in northern Canada and northern Alaska have tundra climate, changing to ice cap climate in the most northern parts of Canada. Southernmost Argentina ( Tierra del Fuego where it abuts

Aasiaat - Misplaced Pages Continue

2268-441: The locations of the different Inuit languages, among them the two main dialects of Greenlandic and the separate language Inuktun ("Avanersuaq"). The most prominent Greenlandic dialect is Kalaallisut, which is the official language of Greenland. The name Kalaallisut is often used as a cover term for all of Greenlandic. The eastern dialect ( Tunumiit oraasiat ) , spoken in the vicinity of Ammassalik Island and Ittoqqortoormiit ,

2322-579: The north of Köppen's near the west coasts of the Northern Hemisphere continents, south of it in the interior sections, and at about the same latitude along the east coasts of both Asia and North America. In the Southern Hemisphere, all of Tierra del Fuego lies outside the polar region in Nordenskiöld's system, but part of the island (including Ushuaia , Argentina ) is reckoned as being within

2376-530: The official language in Greenland with Danish. Since then, Greenlandic has become the sole official language. That has made Greenlandic a unique example of an indigenous language of the Americas that is recognized by law as the only official language of a semi-independent country. Nevertheless, it is still considered to be in a "vulnerable" state by the UNESCO Red Book of Language Endangerment . The country has

2430-547: The primary economic activities of the region. The archipelago area offers many services for tourists, including kayaking , cross-country skiing , dogsledding , and whale-watching . Aasiaat is a port of call for the Arctic Umiaq Line coastal ship and Diskoline.gl (domestic passenger ships for disko bay). Aasiaat harbour functions as well as a hub for regional shipping. The town is also served by Aasiaat Airport with direct connections to Ilulissat and other settlements in

2484-424: The spring. In the summer, they moved to Nassuttooq for reindeer and halibut . During autumn, the people of Disko Bay returned home to hunt small harp seals. In the winter, the bay froze over, and they hunted narwhals and Beluga whales. These early people designed and built their own kayaks and umiaks when the water freed up; in the winter, they used qamutiiks . The settlement that would become Aasiaat

2538-403: The total population of the archipelago is spread among three settlements: Another abandoned village is Vester Ejland on the namesake island, the westernmost of the archipelago, 29 km (18 mi) west-south-west of Aasiaat. Aasiaat has a polar climate ( Köppen ET ) with a July mean of only 6.8 °C or 44.2 °F. With 3,069 inhabitants as of 2020, Aasiaat is the largest town in

2592-467: The town square with live music. Nipiaa Rock Festival is usually a 3-day long concert with various musicians. It is known as the best musical event in Greenland. The Rock Festival takes place in the Sportshall at the end of August/beginning of September. Greenlandic language Greenlandic (Greenlandic: kalaallisut [kalaːɬːisʉt] ; Danish : grønlandsk [ˈkʁɶnˌlænˀsk] )

2646-572: The town. Aasiaat is sometimes referred to as the Town of the Whales , since marine mammals such as whales and seals are a common sight. Archaeological projects in the region have suggested human habitation in the region that includes Aasiaat as far back as the 5th millennium BC . The earliest modern settlers dated to around 1200; these were probably subsistence hunters . These inhabitants hunted harp seals and capelin ( ammassaat ) near Sydøst Bay in

2700-469: The war. A weather station was constructed in 1942 by the Americans. Cod , an economically popular fish since the 1930s, were caught and sent to a new factory to be salted and packed. Other businesses sprang up, accommodating to the resources and climate of the region. This boom reached its peak in the 1950s, when a power plant and telecommunications station were installed. In 1998, a new landing strip

2754-528: The world . Greenlandic was brought to Greenland by the arrival of the Thule people in the 1200s. The languages that were spoken by the earlier Saqqaq and Dorset cultures in Greenland are unknown. The first descriptions of Greenlandic date from the 1600s. With the arrival of Danish missionaries in the early 1700s and the beginning of Danish colonization of Greenland, the compilation of dictionaries and description of grammar began. The missionary Paul Egede wrote

SECTION 50

#1732848454126

2808-405: Was founded in 1759 by Niels Egede, son of Hans Egede , a Norwegian missionary . Named Egedesminde Colony after him, it was located north of Nordre Strømfjord, and was 125 km south of Aasiaat's current location. The town was moved to its current site in 1763. Most villagers were whalers , and the smallpox germs they carried to the region ravaged the native population, especially during

2862-545: Was opened to the public (previously a heliport was the only aerial facility); it is near a shrimp processing factory. Today, almost 4,800 people live in Aasiaat and its neighboring settlement, Kangaatsiaq . The largest island of the Aasiaat Archipelago is Saqqarliup Nunaa , which is uninhabited, but has buildings to accommodate tourists. On the western tip of the island is the abandoned village of Manermiut . As of 2013

2916-435: Was written in a complicated orthography devised by the missionary linguist Samuel Kleinschmidt . In 1973, a new orthography was introduced, intended to bring the written language closer to the spoken standard, which had changed considerably since Kleinschmidt's time. The reform was effective, and in the years following it, Greenlandic literacy has received a boost. Another development that has strengthened Greenlandic language

#125874