Saving eastern Greenlandic history and language

Ole Lund, a teacher in eastern Greenland for the past 10 years, is looking for money to kick start a project that will help preserve and promote the language and culture of eastern Greenlanders.

Lund wants to compile the complete family history of 7,000 living and deceased eastern Greenlanders.

“The family history will rehabilitate the eastern Greenlanders and motivate them to revive their rich oral tradition, who has been suppressed for decades,” Lund told the Danish newspaper Jyllandsposten. “The eastern Greenlandic kids are not taught their own language at the school, they are taught western Greenlandic. There is no standardized eastern Greenlandic language, and the few eastern Greenlandic dictionaries available are produced by French men, Danes and western Greenlanders. They literally have jumped from having no books into the age of Internet technology.”

Lund said eastern Greenlanders were once considered to be lawless cannibals, while the Thule Inuit were considered “noble savages.”

“Their reputation has been bad, and their language has been put down. They were exploited by the French and the Danes. Their original history with the original phrases has almost all been lost. I want to help, but it is urgent.”