I’ve been a Scrabble enthusiast almost all of my life. As intriguing as the game is, it can be very annoying when one’s luck is bad, pulling lousy letters out of the bag. A proverbial problem is getting stuck with the letter “Q” without the all-important “U”.
This would not be a problem up here. These Inuits (“Eskimos”) have the good sense to dispense with the need for a “U”. The letter Q apparently works like a K, so Qaqortok is pronounced Cocker Tock. I’m looking at a little map of Greenland, which has other cool Inuit names like Qaanaaq, Kalaallit Nunaat, and Nuuk. Not only would the letter Q cease to be a problem, but a trayful of vowels would also be no big deal.
Qaqortok used to be called Julienhab, a Scandinavian name. But in a rather nice gesture, the controlling Scandinavians allowed the re-naming of the town, in Inuit. This little map reflects both languages, even more so the Scandinavian -- names like Nyvestervej and Forstanderskabshuset……looks like the Danes don’t bother with the letter Q at all, which is another solution to the Scrabble problem, just throw away the damn Q.
So the Inuits and the Danes co-exist in this bleak place. The word Qaqortok means “stark white site”, which indicates what this place is like the rest of the year. The surrounding mountains have only the slightest hint of green, looks like moss. Certainly no trees, foliage, etc. Looking out toward the sea, there are some small icebergs here and there. So the name Greenland is a longstanding misnomer and joke. One-third the size of continental United States, and 85% of it is covered by glacial icecap. Or is it 80% ? Depends on the vintage of your encyclopedia.
Things are changing. The glacier is starting to melt, due to global warming, and they’re uncovering valuable new mineral deposits underground, where they were previously unable to dig. Looking down the road, they’re expecting Greenland to actually become a green land. So I might buy an acre of rock slab right now while real estate is still cheap, relocate here later, do gigs for the increasing population, and improve my Scrabble game.
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3 comments:
Very interesting, Steve. I always imagined Greenland to be very green. Maybe it was their only way to distinguish it from Iceland. Who knows?
Seems like a very difficult language to pronounce. Ugh! Have Fun.
"qat"
To Joe --
The Official Scrabble Dictionary (early 1980’s) was supposed to end all arguments. And on the tournament level, it is The Bible. And in tournament Scrabble there is qat, qoph, aa, ai, aalii, xu, xi, zoa, and a ton of Words No One Ever Uses, which help people to score well and get rid of crap letters. The biggest key to becoming a high-ranked player in the Scrabble World is to memorize thousands of these words.
But I’m not a tournament player anymore, I didn’t have the time or drive to throw my entire heart and soul into such rote memorization. Kinda like playing a lot of boring finger exercises on piano. So now I’m just a “living room player” -- somewhat derogatory term. I have a residual knowledge of the abovementioned weird words, but since 1999 I’ve forgotten a great deal of them. I find it’s a lot more fun to stick with words that both players know and agree on.
I play Scrabble with Dawn a lot. We observe living room player rules, but occasionally agree to use certain weird words. She’s perfectly OK with “xu” (a Vietnamese monetary unit) but opposed to “xi”(a Greek letter). We’ve agreed to disallow all “q without u” words such as “qat”
To Jackie --
About 1000 years ago there was this murderous Scandinavian adventurer named Eric the Red. He was living in Iceland where murdered some people, and was sentenced to leave Iceland. He sailed to what is now Greenland. The climate was warmer 1000 years ago, and he was able to do some farming in the coastal area. He sent back word that his new home was paradise, and named the place Greenland, to help sell it. He was kinda lonely there. He neglected to mention that 93% of the place was glacial ice. Try traveling inland, you won’t get far. So the word “Greenland” is a big stupid misnomer
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