Eskimology

The Eskimo Logie is the science of the language , literature and culture of the Eskimo with a focus on Greenland . Eskimology is taught as a subject at the University of Copenhagen .

history

prehistory

Interest in the Greenlandic language and culture has existed since the colonization of Greenland in the 18th century. Important early Greenland researchers include, for example, Hans Egede as the colonizer of Greenland, Hinrich Johannes Rink , who was an inspector in Greenland for many years, Samuel Kleinschmidt , who played an unsurpassed role in the study of Greenland, and later Gustav Frederik Holm , Knud Rasmussen , Therkel Mathiassen and Kaj Birket-Smith , all four of whom made names for themselves as polar explorers and ethnologists . In the beginning, ethnology generally played the greatest role in Greenland research and the Det Kongelige Etnografiske Museum in Copenhagen played its part from the start.

Eskimology as a subject

On July 1, 1920, classes in Grønlandsk sprog og culture (“Greenlandic Language and Culture”) began at the University of Copenhagen . The first lecturer was the Danish Greenland explorer William Thalbitzer . The subject was based less on ethnology than on philology . The chair was later taken over by the linguist and ethnologist Erik Holtved . Thalbitzer was focused on the Tunumiit , while Holtved was focused on the Inughuit . In 1967 an eskimological institute was set up at the university. The subject has since been called Eskimologi og Arktiske studier ( "Eskimo Logie and Arctic studies") and is based on language and cultural studies focused in Greenland, but does incidentally topics related to geography , history of religion , history , mythology , ethnography and literature and also covers the Territory of the Eskimo peoples in Canada , Alaska, and Siberia . A large part of the course consists of teaching and the associated language acquisition of West Greenlandic. Initially, Greenlandic was also taught at the University of Aarhus , and discussions were held as to whether the course should be offered in the capital Copenhagen or in Aarhus at the country's largest university. At the same time, people from Greenland asked whether they could move the institute there, but this was rejected from Copenhagen because it was difficult to move an institute from a Danish university to another country, which ultimately resulted in the decision in 1981 to set up an institute itself To build Greenland, which was realized with the Inuit Instituttet in 1983, from which the University of Greenland (Ilisimatusarfik) emerged in 1987 . In 2004 five institutes were merged at the University of Copenhagen, so that Eskimology has since been taught within the Institut for Tværkulturelle og Regionale Studier ("Institute for Intercultural and Regional Studies").

Discussions about the handling of the course

In 2014, the university decided to stop offering 13 courses for financial reasons, including Eskimology, which led to strong protests, especially from Greenland. Nevertheless, it was decided in January 2016 to suspend all subjects for one year, so that no new students can be accepted. It was also assumed that the subjects should not be continued afterwards. The protest also gave rise to the renewed idea of continuing the Eskimology course, which had not previously been offered in Greenland, at Ilisimatusarfik. After protests from Greenlandic and Danish politics, it was announced in April of the same year that four courses would be resumed, namely Eskimology in addition to Ancient Greek , Indian languages and cultures and Modern Indian and Southeast Asian studies . Nevertheless, Eskimology is a very small subject, for which only six applications were received in 2018.