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44-714: Bluie West One , later known as Narsarsuaq Air Base and Narsarsuaq Airport , was built on a glacial moraine at what is now the village of Narsarsuaq , near the southern tip of Greenland . Construction by the United States Army began in June 1941. The first aircraft landed there in January 1942, as a link in the North Atlantic air ferry route in World War II . The base had a peak population of about 4,000 American servicemen, and it

88-521: A B-17 Flying Fortress in 1948. Civil air traffic began in 1949 with Douglas DC-4 propliners operated by Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) and Icelandair . US and Denmark signed The Agreement related to the defense of Greenland on 27 April 1951, with both countries agreeing to share the Bluie West One airbase. In 1952, the Danish Air Force stationed Airgroup West with a PBY Catalina at

132-635: 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

176-410: 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

220-567: 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

264-435: 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

308-745: Is estimated that some 10,000 aircraft landed there en route to the war in Europe and North Africa. Soon after the United States entered the war, the War Department decided to deploy Major General Carl Spaatz 's Eighth Air Force to Britain, putting the North Atlantic ferry route facilities constructed by the Corps to an early test. Radioing from Bluie West 1, while crossing the Atlantic in mid-June 1942, Spaatz ordered

352-525: 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]

396-433: 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

440-520: Is one of three civilian airports in Greenland capable of serving large airliners . It is also the only international airport in southern Greenland. The settlement it serves is small, with the airport primarily functioning as a transfer point for passengers heading for the helicopter hubs of Air Greenland in Qaqortoq and Nanortalik . The airport is due to be closed in late 2026 when Qaqortoq Airport

484-566: Is required, on all approach procedures. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency Narsarsuaq Airport Narsarsuaq Airport ( Greenlandic : Mittarfik Narsarsuaq ) ( IATA : UAK , ICAO : BGBW ) is an airport located in Narsarsuaq , a settlement in the Kujalleq municipality in southern Greenland . Along with Nuuk Airport and Kangerlussuaq Airport , it

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528-489: Is scheduled to open in late 2026. This eliminates the need for Narsarsuaq as a domestic and Iceland-bound gateway to South Greenland. In 2022, the Greenlandic government decided that Narsarsuaq will be downscaled to a heliport, losing the runway. General aviation , historic planes and ferry flights crossing the North Atlantic ocean must use alternative airports for refuelling. Narsarsuaq village will remain inhabited, though

572-682: Is scheduled to open. The airfield at Narsarsuaq was first built by the United States Department of War (now the Department of Defense ) as an army airbase, its construction beginning in July 1941 and the first aircraft landing in January 1942. During World War II , the airbase−codenamed Bluie West One −hosted squadrons of PBY Catalina flying boats and B-25 Mitchell bombers with the assignment to escort allied convoys and track and destroy German submarines . A military hospital with 250 beds

616-421: 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

660-412: 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

704-561: 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:

748-483: 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

792-538: The AS350 Eurocopter aircraft. The airport served as a regional focus city for Air Greenland until the late 2000s, when tough economic conditions forced the airline to raise the low season prices several times. In 2009, the airline announced the sale of Kunuunnguaq , a Boeing 757-200 , one of two airliners in the fleet, serving the Narsarsuaq-Copenhagen route. Later the same year, the airline announced

836-603: 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

880-461: The North Atlantic . The runway by this time had been paved with concrete . Jets require a longer take-off run than do propeller -driven aircraft, and the air base used a small tugboat to move icebergs out of the way of planes taking off over the basin west of the runway. There is a detailed account of a visit to BW-1 in the early days of World War II by Ernest K. Gann , in the book Fate Is The Hunter . The advent of aerial refueling , and

924-404: 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

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968-483: 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

1012-507: 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

1056-537: 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

1100-414: The acquisition of two new STOL aircraft, being de Havilland Canada Dash-8 200 turboprops, one of which would serve the newly opened triangular route between Narsarsuaq, Nuuk , and Reykjavík-Keflavík . The new route was closed before the first flights could commence, adding to resentment amongst businesses and the community of South Greenland. The declared demand for the direct connection with Iceland

1144-470: The airport. The US Air Force left Bluie West One in November 1958, and the airbase was closed. In January 1959, M/S Hans Hedtoft of Denmark and all on board were lost near the southern tip of Greenland. The Danish Authorities decided to reopen the airport soon after. From November 1959, the Danish Air Force had three PBY Catalinas stationed at Narsarsuaq with the assignment to make ice-observations along

1188-458: The airport. Transfers to local settlements are normally done by boat or helicopter flights. Diskoline sells tickets to boats to Narsaq and Qaqortoq . Boats require a bus transfer since the port is around 2.5 km (1.5 mi) from the terminal. Greenlandic language Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots and suffixes . The language's morphosyntactic alignment

1232-495: 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

1276-555: The coast of Greenland, and these observations were broadcast to ships in the area. In the 1960s and 1970s, Greenlandair and SAS both served Narsarsuaq with Douglas DC-6 propliners while Icelandair operated Boeing 727 jets. During the 1980s, SAS operated Douglas DC-8 jets at Narsarsuaq. Since 1 January 1988, the airport has been operated by Mittarfeqarfiit , the Greenland Airport Administration . Ice-observations are still based at Narsarsuaq and carried out with

1320-767: 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

1364-428: 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/

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1408-468: 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

1452-486: The journey longer than 850 mi (740 nmi; 1,370 km). Other important bases in Greenland were Bluie West Eight near the present-day town of Kangerlussuaq , and Bluie East One on the almost-uninhabited east coast. Bad weather is frequent in Southern Greenland, and Narsarsuaq is virtually surrounded by high mountains, making the approach to the steel-mat runway exceedingly difficult. The usual approach

1496-441: 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 ,

1540-413: The loss of the airport function is already having its toll. The first Greenland Air Trophy took place at Narsarsuaq Airport, 30 June 2019. The winning pilot was Rene Petersen of Greenland, second and third places both taken by French pilots. In the terminal there is a simple cafeteria, a duty-free 'Nanoq' shop, as well as a small tourist office, which helps coordinate general aviation activities at

1584-682: The movement to begin. The P-38 and P-39 fighters, piloted by combat crews who had been given special training in long-distance flying, were escorted by the longer-range B-17 bombers. With stops at the Canadian-built base at Goose Bay in Labrador , Bluie West 1 in Southern Greenland, and Reykjavík or Keflavik in Iceland , the aircraft could fly from the new Presque Isle Army Airfield in northern Maine to Prestwick Airport in Scotland with no leg of

1628-530: 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

1672-417: The opening of the larger Thule Air Base in northern Greenland, made the base redundant, and it was turned over to the Danish government of Greenland in 1958. It is currently known as Narsarsuaq Airport and served by regular flights from Reykjavík , Iceland during the summer season, as well as by commuter aircraft from Kangerlussuaq and other Greenlandic airfields . There is no control tower , and ceiling

1716-455: The route to Iceland rendered the prospected Air Greenland route to Denmark unprofitable, leading directly to the decline in traffic in southern Greenland. Re-establishment of a direct route to continental Europe was unlikely to happen in 2011. In 2012, flights to/from Copenhagen started in the summer by chartering a separate operator. The new airport in Qaqortoq is currently under construction and

1760-528: 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

1804-439: Was a low-level flight up a fjord . Because the runway slopes up west to east, landings were (and still are predominantly) made to the east, with take-offs to the west, regardless of the wind direction. BW-1's importance declined post World War II, but the U.S. Air Force maintained it as Narsarsuaq Air Base during the early Cold War years, when it served as a refuelling station for jet fighters and for helicopters crossing

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1848-535: Was completed in 1943. Approximately 4,000 people were stationed at the base during the war. It is estimated that, during that time, more than 10,000 aircraft were ferried through the airbase. On 6 July 1942, the supply ship SS Montrose was wrecked on a cliff in the Tunulliarfik Fjord southwest of the airbase. The first aircraft from the Danish Air Force stationed at Narsarsuaq was a PBY Catalina in 1947 and

1892-521: Was not reflected in ticket sales numbers, which contributed to the pullout decision. With the Boeing airliner sold on 26 April 2010, the entire Kujalleq municipality, and southern Greenland in general remains without prospects for a direct connection to continental Europe. The financial crisis of 2008–2010 and the air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption both contributed to lower passenger demand, while competition from Air Iceland on

1936-435: 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

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