Danish Greenlanders are ethnic

Danes Danes (, ), or Danish people, are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural. History Early history Denmark ...

residing in

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

and their descendants. Danish born people are a minority ethnic group in Greenland, accounting for around 7% of the territory's population.

Greenlandic Inuit The Greenlandic Inuit or sometimes simply the Greenlandic are an ethnic group and nation Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous to Greenland, where they constitute the largest ethnic population. They share a common #History, ancestry, ...

(including

mixed-race The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...

persons) make up approximately 85%–90% of the total (2009 estimate). Attracted by good employment opportunities with high wages, many Danes settled in the town of

Nuuk Nuuk (; , formerly ) is the capital and most populous city of Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. Nuuk is the seat of government and the territory's largest cultural and economic center. It is also the seat of gove ...

during the 1990s. Nuuk has the highest proportion of Danes of any town in Greenland.

History

There were continuous

Norse settlements in Greenland Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a Medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Culture and religion * Nors ...

in the southwest from the 10th century until the 15th century. It remains unclear exactly when and how these populations eventually disappeared, but climate change appears to be the primary cause. The majority of these medieval settlers hailed from Norway by way of Iceland, rather than Denmark. From 1721 onwards, the Danish (and Norwegian) presence in south-western Greenland was restored, initially in the form of seasonal trading posts and missions, rather than permanent settlements.

Danish language

Both Danish and Greenlandic have been used in public affairs in Greenland since the establishment of home rule in 1979; the majority of the population can speak both languages. Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) became the sole official language in June 2009. Danish is still widely used in the administration and in higher education, as well as remaining the first or only language for some Danish immigrants in Nuuk and other larger towns. A debate about the role of Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) and Danish in future society is ongoing. About 12% of the population of Greenland speaks Danish as a first or sole language, particularly Danish immigrants in Greenland, many of whom fill positions such as administrators, professionals, academics, or skilled tradesmen. While Greenlandic is dominant in all smaller settlements, a part of the population of

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

or mixed ancestry, especially in towns, speaks Danish. Most of the Inuit population speaks Danish as a second language. In larger towns, especially Nuuk and in the higher social strata, this is still a larger group.

References

{{Greenland topics

Danish Greenlandic Greenlandic people of Danish descent Ethnic groups in Greenland

History

Danish language

See also

References