Postcolonial and Environmental Semantics - A postcolonial case study of environmental words in the Nuuk-Danish universe of meaning

In this thesis, I follow up on Birgitte Jacobsen's early studies in 2003 of Nuuk-Danish. Based on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and a postcolonial approach, I unfold the linguistic worldviews embedded in Nuuk-Danish environmental concepts. More specifically, with evidence from text examples and semantic consultations with young people in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, I propose NSM semantic explications of the Nuuk-Danish seasonal environmental words midnatssol (‘midnight sun’) and vintermørke (‘winter darkness’), the landscape words isen (‘the (inland) ice’), havet (‘the sea’), and fjeld (‘fell’, ‘mountain’, ‘hill’), and the non-human environment-bound being concept fjeldgænger (‘a dangerous human-like creature living in the fell’). Like other environmental concepts, the Nuuk-Danish words are rooted in an anthropocentric perspective. In addition, the analysis suggests that the Nuuk-Danish words might also be anchored in a colonial view on the arctic environment. Lastly, I return to Jacobsen’s final remark on Nuuk-Danish, where she speculates, if Nuuk-Danish signals a generation that has overcome a neither-nor identity crisis. My initial observations indicate that Nuuk-Danish is considered a linguistic both-and-position based on the colonial language but marking Greenlandic identity.