Greenlandic is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) by about 50,000 people. There are also about 7,000 speakers in Denmark. There are three main dialects of Greenlandic: North (Inuktun), West (Kalaallisut) and East Greenlandic. The most widely spoken dialect is West Greenlandic, which is used in Greenland's schools, along with Danish.
Greenlandic is closely related to Inuktitut, an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in Canada.
A number of spelling systems for Greenlandic using the Latin alphabet were devised by Danish missionaries during the early 19th century. A standardised system, which is used to this day, was developed by the Danish linguist, Samuel Kleinschmidt, in the mid-19th century.
