kalaallisut or, in english, greenlandic, is the standard dialect and official language of greenland. this standard national language is now taught to all greenlanders in school, regardless of their native dialect. it is related to inuktitut. it reflects almost exclusively the language of western greenland and has borrowed a great deal of vocabulary from danish, while canadian and alaskan inuit languages have tended to take words from english or sometimes french and russian. it is written using the roman alphabet. the dialect of the upernavik area in northwest greenland is somewhat different in sound from the standard dialect.