Author, historian, teacher, translator, school principal and judge, born in Godthåb (now Nuuk; Greenland) in 1916 – died in Nuuk in 2015.
Christian Berthelsen, also known as Christiaannguaq, was born in Godthåb (now Nuuk; Greenland) in 1916. He is the son of Udsted administrator Johan Jørgen Josef Berthelsen (1883–1958) and of Karen Bodil Abegael Lynge (1882¬–1950). His brother, Rasmus Hans Pavia Karl Berthelsen (1905–1980), was mayor of Godthåb from 1955 to 1963 and was the father of the politician and musician Per Berthelsen, born in 1950.
Christian Berthelsen married Vibeke Kaja Wulff-Hansen in 1945. She was the daughter of architect Poul Wulff-Hansen (1885–1956) and Marie Louise Nielsen (1893–1976). Together, Christian Berthelsen and Vibeke Kaja Wulff-Hansen had three children: Lone (b. 1946); Finn (b. 1949); and Hannah (b. 1958).
In 1936, Christian Berthelsen began his post-secondary education, studying catechism in Qoornoq (Greenland). He then pursued teacher training in Jonstrup (Denmark) in 1941, as well as further training to become a teacher at the International People’s College (Denmark) from 1941 to 1945.
After World War II, he returned to Greenland and worked as a teacher for 15 years. He was then employed as a school principal, inspector, and consultant from 1960 to 1972. Christian Berthelsen had a significant influence on the development and instruction of Greenlandic children, particularly through his work on Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), his first language, and through his role as an advisor for the development of school textbooks on Kalaallisut, a position he occupied between 1973 and 1986. In addition to his duties in the education sector, he held the position of judge of the High Court of Greenland. Once retired, he moved to Denmark, where he taught Kalaallisut to Danes. From 1977 to 1986, he was an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Eskimo Studies (Danish: Institut for eskimologi).
Christian Berthelsen was very active in the political, linguistic, and cultural life of Greenland; he was a member the Radio Agency, of the board of Knud Rasmussen University College (Danish: Knud Rasmussens Højskole), and of the Greenland Board of Education. He was also chair of the Greenlandic Publishing House and the Greenland Language and Spelling Committee of the Greenlandic Society for the Attribution of Place Names and a member of the Bible Translation Committee. Christian Berthelsen was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Greenland (Ilisimatusarfik; Nuuk, Greenland) in 2014; the institution emphasized his important contribution to the dissemination of Greenlandic language, literature, and culture.
Christian Berthelsen is the author of ten books, which focus on the literary history of his native island. He has also published textbooks on linguistics and spelling. He published a history of Greenlandic literature, Kalaallit atusakkiaat, in 1957; it was reissued in 1974 under the title of Oqaluttuaativut taalliaativullu 1956 ilaangullugu, in 1976 as Oqaluttuaativut taalliaativullu 1974 ilaangullugu, and once more in 1994, this time under the title of Kalaallit Atuakkiaat 1900 ilarmgullugu. As part of his work tracing the history and variety of Greenlandic literature, he was editor of Kalaallisut sungiusaatit. Læsestykker i Grønlandsk, published in 1980, and co-editor of Grønlandsk litteratur: en kommenteret antologi, published in 1983. In 1973, he introduced a Greenlandic spelling method.
From 1941 onwards, Christian Berthelsen authored over hundred articles on Inuit language and culture in both Greenlandic and Danish newspapers. He also co-authored, with Christina Inger H. Mortensen and Ebbe Mortensen, the Kalaallit Nunaat Atlas, first published in Kalaallisut and Danish in 1992 and translated into English in 1993. He translated many literary works from English into Kalaallisut, such as A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene in 1967 (Kalaallisut: Pundit akigineqarpoq), and from Kalaallisut into English, such as Kalaallit eqqumiitsuliaat by Bodil Kaalund in 1980 (English: The Art of Greenland).
Christian Berthelsen died at the age of ninety-eight, in Nuuk, in 2015.