Eskimo-Aleut · ISO 639-3 kal · kl
Kalaallisut Language kalaallisut
Kalaallisut is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken by about 56,200 people in 2 countries. It is an official language of Greenland. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Kalaallisut is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
About the Kalaallisut language
Kalaallisut (kalaallisut) is spoken by about 56,200 people, which makes it the 533rd most spoken language in the world — just behind Marshallese (61,000) and ahead of Romansh (42,000). It belongs to the Eskimo-Aleut language family and, more precisely, to the Greenlandic Inuit group within the Inuit branch.
Where is Kalaallisut spoken?
Kalaallisut is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in Greenland (48,510) and Denmark (7,167). More than half of the population speaks it in Greenland — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Kalaallisut: Greenland 84% (48,510) and Denmark 0.1% (7,167).
Kalaallisut is an official language in 1 country: Greenland. It also has regional official status in Denmark.
Writing system and status
Kalaallisut is written in the Latin script. Glottolog classifies it as threatened, meaning fewer children learn it than in the past.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Inuktitut.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 kl, ISO 639-3 kal.
Frequently asked questions about Kalaallisut
How many people speak Kalaallisut?
Where is Kalaallisut spoken?
In which countries is Kalaallisut an official language?
What language family does Kalaallisut belong to?
What is Kalaallisut called in Kalaallisut?
Is Kalaallisut an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.