Hardcoal-German (Dutch: Steenkolenduits) is a linguistic term for a very simplified form of German used by Dutchmen. The term was created in analogy to Hardcoal-English, a form of Pidgin English used by Dutch sailors on coal barges. First and foremost, a hardcoal-language is a medium for informal communication which attempts to achieve mutual understanding without regard to grammatical correctness. This article presents and analyses two texts and a number of short sentences as examples of Hardcoal-German. It appears that Hardcoal-German is an infusion of Dutch language elements into German. The result are many ill-formed German utterances which are nevertheless comprehensible to speakers of both languages. This is the main argument of some Dutch linguists who state that every form of global language will be a hardcoal language. In contrast to this assumption, I put forward the hypothesis that Hardcoal-German is not a language in the strict (linguistic) sense of the word; on the contrary, it is a situation-bound tool for simple communication between Dutchmen and Germans. In my view, much more extensive work will be necessary to arrive at a more accurate description and analysis of Hardcoal-German. This article will be the first step in that direction.
Since 1992 the „European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages” is being discussed in Europe together with opportunities and ways for the protection of lesser used languages, dialects are not rated among these. This points to linguistic difficulties on how to define regional and minority languages linguistically compatible. This will be discussed in the article with an emphasis on the particular difficulties of the regional languages. Ultimately everything amounts to a definitional practice in which it is essential not to intermingle language politics with linguistic science. This, however, has happened in the discussion about the charter in Germany (with regard to Low German) as well in the Netherlands (with regard to Low Saxon, Limburgish and Zeelandic). The discussions are indirectly a plea for linguistic science to contribute to debates on linguistic politics so that these do not lose their substantial core of matter.
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