201 



the dialects of Cape York and of Upevnawik^ even if only 

 slight. 



The difference between the dialect of Upernaivik and 

 South Green I an die must be considerable, if those natives of 

 Upernawik are to be believed who declared that they could not 

 understand a South Greenlander at all with the exception of 

 some few single words. Even as far north as in the Oomman- 

 naq District 1 met Greenlanders who thought that people from 

 upernawik talked very differently from themselves. 



Upernawik and Oommamiaq have in common the sporadic 

 occurrence of 7i instead of r between two vowels: nêi^iwdq (he 

 is eating) for neriivoq etc. 



Common to the whole of INorth Greenland all the way from 

 Upernawik to Ado (Agio) is the use of ^ for g. According 

 to private information *), the g-sound does not begin to be in 

 common use before at Holstensborg and from there toward the 

 south as far as Nanortalik in the Julianehaab District, accord- 

 ingly in "Middle Greenland" (about 60°— 67° N. lat.). To the 

 south of the Eskimo settlement lÅ'okasik, which lies south of 

 the last mentioned trading-place, ^ is again used instead of q. 

 Yet I have found g used sporadically in North Greenland, both 

 in Disko Bay and Oommannaq Fjord (cf. g 8), but /^ is every- 

 where the most frequent, in the Upentawik dialect, I got the 

 same impression, although the incompleteness of my investiga- 

 tions there leave me in uncertainty as to which of the two 

 sounds is most predominant. 



Also the sound-group гц (or rti^ -q) seems to be common 

 to all North Greenlandic as opposed to the South or Middle 

 Greenlandic rn (sometimes rm). Examples of this are given in 

 g 8, p. 82 (cf. Chr. Rasmussen Grönl. Grammatik p. 15). 



*) From the present director of Godthaab Seminary, who at iii> iiHiuiry 

 took the trouble to test the pronunciation of Greenlauders from all parts 

 of the west coast in a number of words where South Greenlanders 

 pronttunfe the sound cj. 



