§ 31. Dialects in Greenland. The language which 

 is spoken along the inhabited coasts of Greenland does not 

 sound alike everywhere. The stock of words and the forms 

 aimed at are chiefly the same, but phonetic differentiations have 

 taken place from settlement to settlement, and have struck root 

 sometimes over smaller, sometimes over larger areas. Even 

 within the limited part of the west coast which 1 succeeded in 

 traversing there were some very essential differences to be 

 detected. For the rest of the inhabited coasts, we have merely 

 some few meagre pioneer contributions to an investigation of 

 this kind. A comparative examination of this material shows 

 that there are at least 3 or 4 distinct dialects in Greenland 

 and each one of these probably in turn falls into several 

 dialectal subdivisions. 



This circumstance may partly be explained by the natural 

 boundaries existing between the various districts, which often 

 cause all intercourse between the inhabitants of two neighboring 

 districts to be broken off for a long period of time. But it is 

 also possible that it may partly be explained by the fact that 

 two or several immigrations have taken place from different 

 tribes, each having its own dialect. There is some reason for 

 giving the preference to this last explanation, if a comparison 

 between the dialects shows that two groups which are now 

 geographically separated have striking dialectal peculiarities in 

 common; such an agreement would justify us in assuming the 

 historical connection between the two language-groups, and 

 accordingly also between the respective tribal groups, to have 



