A brand new language has been quickly spreading, as noticed by linguist Nicholas Grenoble. The inflow of English has been noticeable, with current immigrants and momentary staff primarily utilizing the language. Moreover, younger individuals are studying English by varied mediums corresponding to motion pictures, video video games, social media, and YouTube. Grenoble’s analysis goals to know the dynamics of this case each linguistically and sociolinguistically. Particularly, he desires to know who speaks which language, when, and with whom. He’s additionally excited by how Greenlanders are studying English and the way it impacts their information and use of their mom tongue, Kalaallisut.

To assemble info and reply these questions, Grenoble and mission postdoc Jessica Kantarovich carried out observations in Nuuk, Greenland. One explicit space of curiosity for them was the studies of Kalaallisut getting shorter. Kalaallisut is a polysynthetic language, the place suffixes tackle the position of phrases in languages like English. Grenoble offers an instance, explaining that the phrase “qujanaq” means “thanks.” By including the suffix “-rsuaq,” that means “huge,” the phrase turns into “qujanarsuaq,” which interprets to “huge thanks” or “thanks very a lot.” The researchers carried out interviews in Kalaallisut to find out if and the way phrases had been getting shorter. Additionally they studied the on a regular basis use of the language.

Of their analysis, Grenoble and Kantarovich additionally interact in participant-observation work. They spend time in public locations, corresponding to shops and eating places, to watch the language utilization. They take note of who’s utilizing which language in informal and temporary interactions. One explicit focus for the students is the idea of shifting audio system, which refers to younger folks of their homeland who cease studying their dad and mom’ minority language and shift to the bulk language. This phenomenon is of nice curiosity to Grenoble and his group.