Should there be an official language for this country...

[butterfly77]

or should everyone that comes to this country,continue to speak the language they came here speaking. If you say that any group should not have to learn english how should we handle it? We all know that the person will continue to speak their native language, but for those who think that there should not be an official language what should be done. give examples: Should we have certain sections in all businesses for all different languages. Businesses that speak a language other than english should they have a section for english speaking customers.

I am asking this question because I want to know why everyone believes the way they do concerning what languages should be spoken. I am not speaking about dialects or how a person speaks english if it were mandatory. I don't think that a law should have to be passed to require english to be the official language of this country either. I believe that when a person comes to this country it is already understood that English is the language that is spoken by most americans

[icymist]

1. It is strangely enough that early on, German was the official language.

Well, it was considered. Well, wasn't that enough? Are we all afraid of learning to speak Spanish?

On edit after re-reading the OP and seeing that we don't see too far apart.

[bif]

3. You're close

Congress voted to make German the official language. It lost by one vote.

[Bucky]

6. You're both wrong. German was never even close to being official

This is an urban legend started by the Nazis and their tiny group of American sympathizers in the early 1930s. The truth is that in 1790 Congress was asked by a small community of German immigrants in Virginia to provide funding for a translation of the US Code of Laws (obviously just written) into German. Congress narrowly voted to send this request to a committee preparing the next year's budget, but then Congress adjourned before the committee ever considered it. And so the appropriation died.

That's the whole story. Except 140 years later some pro-Nazi kooks in Pennsylvania turned the story into a lie that Congress narrowly missed voting German as our legal (not official) language. When you pass on this story, you pass on Nazi lies. And therefor abed Bush policies. ;)

[icymist]

12. Wow! That's the first I've heard of your story. Would you please...

provide me a link to confirm this? I would greatly be obliged to you.

[Bucky]

16. Fine, but it turns out that I got quite a bit of the story wrong, too

Damn damned memory! This writer got it right.

Urban Legend: German almost became the official language of the US

The German Vote

On January 13, 1795, Congress considered a proposal, not to give German any official status, but merely to print the federal laws in German as well as English. During the debate, a motion to adjourn failed by one vote. The final vote rejecting the translation of federal laws, which took place one month later, is not recorded.

The translation proposal itself originated as a petition to Congress on March 20, 1794, from a group of Germans living in Augusta, Virginia. A House committee responding to that petition recommended publishing sets of the federal statutes in English and distributing them to the states, together with the publication of three thousand sets of laws in German, "for the accommodation of such German citizens of the United States, as do not understand the English language." (American State Papers ser. 10, v. 1:114). According to the succinct report in the Aurora Gazette, "A great variety of plans were proposed, but none that seemed to meet the general sense of the House." (22 January, 1795, p. 3).

A vote to adjourn and sit again on the recommendation failed, 42 to 41, but there is no reason to believe from this close vote that more than token support existed for publishing the laws in German. The vote to adjourn seems to have been interpreted by the House as a vote of no confidence both in the committee's recommendation to translate the laws and in its recommendation on the distribution of the sets of laws once they were published in English. While there is no record of debate on the translation provision that day, if sentiment on the issue in Congress was anything like sentiment in Pennsylvania, translation was probably opposed by a substantial majority of the representatives.

[keith the dem]

4. Up to world war I

German was the predominate language in much of Pennsylvania. That said most people, probably all second generation people, also knew English

Language is a self correcting problem. Second generations have always learned English.

This issue is nothing more than a racist smokescreen to raise the BFEE's lagging pole numbers.

[Bucky]

11. Not "much" of Pennsylvania, but parts of Pennsylvania.

Those parts were sparsely populated, while the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvanians in the heavily populated Delaware valley, Wilkes-Barre area, Pittsburgh area, Bethleham-Allentown area, and Harrisburg area were predominantly English speaking. The only parts of PA with a significant German speaking population were along the lower Susquehannah valley around York and Lancaster. Children of immigrants who crossed the mountains to settle on the Pittsburgh side of the state ended up in English speaking communities and adapted accordingly.

This has always been an English speaking country and a hundred years from now will still be an English speaking country.

[keith the dem]

27. look it up

The majority of the newspapers in Eastern PA (like Allentown)were still in German at the turn of the century. All my Grandparents and the old timers spoke German (Lehigh Valley). They used it like a secret code against us youngsters. But if your point is that they were bilingual and only isolated areas spoke only german, I see your point.
I think you will find that even in the heaviest concentrations of Spanish speakers today, most have a workable knowledge of English.

[butterfly77]

Why aren't you giving any suggestions ...

why so angry . Do you know what languages I speak.

[icymist]

13. There are no suggestions here to give.

I too wish for your common language and recoginition of native language as such, but here, I don't see it. Please keep trying for someday this will happen. As for now, Wado for your efforts.

[butterfly77]

21. And what language would you like that to be

[elehhhhna]

2. Body language! Everybody speaks it!

[Bucky]

19. I only speak Body English. Why do you hate Scalia?

Translate this, Elehhhhna!

[Traveling_Home]

5. What do other countries

do about an offical language? Is French the 'official' language of France; is Spanish the 'official' language of Mexico; is Arabic the 'official' language of Jordan?

Any links?

[Fleshdancer]

8. Here's a list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_official_languages

[icymist]

10. Why do the countries of France, Jorden, Spain, and Mexico matter

in how America determins how she will choose what language she will speak? My personal preferance aside, my country will still speak for me, no matter what language. I'm still sure that America will still undersdtand these other countries.

[Traveling_Home]

30. Time to look outside ourselves

"Why do the countries of France, Jorden, Spain, and Mexico matter in how
America determins how she will choose what language she will speak? My personal preferance aside, my country will still speak for me, no matter what language. I'm still sure that America will still undersdtand these other countries"


It is usually advocated that the US look to the practices (including for example legal systems and health systems and taxes and employee vacations and diplomacy efforts) as a way to learn more from the rest of the world and to prevent us from being such a pariah - to not explore how other countries handle the issue of a offical language (whether to you approval or not), seems like just more arrogance on our part.

So how do the other countries handle it?

[pnwmom]

18. Yes, Spanish is the official language of Mexico (and of Argentina

Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Quatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Uraguay, and Venezuala.

French is the official language of France and of 31 other countries.

Arabic is the official language of Jordan.

About half of the states in the world have an official language or languages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_official_languages_by_state

[Fleshdancer]

7. The question I keep asking is this:

Is there some sort of non-English speaking crisis in this country that I am oblivious to? Seriously. Do we have a problem? IS this a problem? Yes Americans speak English but immmigrants are *gasp!* smart enough to know this. Everyone knows this. Many people around the world laugh at the fact that most Americans can only speak English. After 200 years of being a country of immigrants, do we now need the government to write a law stating that this monolingual country is, indeed, monolingual? What would be the point exactly?

[butterfly77]

9. The point is why is everyone so angry and ...

since you know everything what are your suggestions, should the government make it mandatory for americans to learn all foreign languages or what?

[Karenina]

24. These days, Americans can barely read

speak or write Americanese competently. A second language was a requirement for graduation from high school back in the day. I'd take it a step further, requiring grade schools to introduce the concept of language learning EARLY, while it's still easy.

There is NO DOWN SIDE to learning languages. In fact, it's excellent exercise for the brain.

"English no one language, man. She many, many language." -Carlos
Take a guess where he's from. ;-)

English is the de facto lingua franca of the planet, whose inhabitants outside U.S. borders are once again rolling their eyes at this latest uniquely American folly.

[Fleshdancer]

35. "since you know everything"? THIS is how you debate?

My suggestion is that the government should stop dividing Americans over this nonsense. With all the real problems this country is facing, is language one of them?

[butterfly77]

36. Evidently it is since...

the government felt that had to make a law and people are answering to the post.

[keith the dem]

29. If you know 3 languages, you are trilingual

If you know 2 languages, you are bilingual
If you know 1 language, you are American

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. The whole "crisis" about language is phony.

American English is a melting pot of languages riddled with foreign words and phrases. Making English an "official language" is right up there with anti-flag burning amendments in political posturing.

[icymist]

15. Yat we have this crap going on in Congress!

Should these people's fear be no less real?

[Scoody Boo]

17. How far can you get without speaking English?

I am not in favor of an "official" language, but if a person stays with speaking only the language of their home country, how far can they get in business, work or other things. What advantage is there to not speaking English? I did not speak a word of English until I was 14. I have several immigrant employees, all from Mexico. The ones who do not speak English are not ever going to rise above being helper in my company. If they can't speak English, I can't promote them to operators or supervisors.

While English should never be official, it will alway necessary.

[Bucky]

20. Abso-lutely right.

The language of the country is the language of the country. Period. The symbolic and pointless act of designating an official language is intended only to rile up the xenophobic tendencies among swing voters in suburbs and small towns. An unintended, but certainly understood, side effect of this symbolic act is to slap the face of everyone in the country who is a little slow learning English or who speaks with an accent. I should say "who speaks with a foreign accent" since everyone except people from east Texas have some kind of weird accent.

[icymist]

23. To understand things in english, one thing.

For employers to make an exception toward those employees they like so much, another. If you're going to hire Mexicans, then would it not make sense to express instructions also in Spanish? Bilinguals, would this also be of those with sane minds in this situation?

[Scoody Boo]

26. There some jobs around here...

where a guy can be promoted in spite of not knowing English. My company is not one of them. My operators work on jobs mostly alone with their helper. Representatives from the oil companies will show up and want reports or give them instructions. If the operator cannot speak English, he can't make out the reports or speak with the oil company representives and engineers.

I speak Spanish. I spoke only Spanish for the first 14 years of my life before arriving here from Mexico.

[Metta]

22. There already is. Shame, fear, lying and corruption.

Put them all together, they spell today's politicians, for the most part.

[MADem]

25. Gee, we trusted the Italians, the Poles, the Germans, the Swedes, the

Dutch, the Japanese, the Chinese...and on and on...to learn the language--if not this generation, the next one that came along. The second generation is almost always bilingual, the third generation often LOSES their ancestral tongue (a shame, really).

What is this bullshit where we cannot trust those from the south of our border not to do the same?

Could it be they have better soap operas and jiggly, half-naked, sexist variety shows? No, mama, no quiero aprender ingles...I wanna be able to understand Gordo y Flaca!

Perhaps, heaven forfend, the GUBMINT could fund those old fashioned night school english classes, like they did back in ancient times! Or even shell out for some DECENT, worth watching, language programming on public TV....

[Kerrytravelers]

28. No. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. NO

[Traveling_Home]

32. Seems like most other countries

have an official language (see previous posts in this thread).. What is it that other countries know that we don't or are we simply better morally and ethically on this issue? We are now looking to them for health care ideas, taxes, legal systems, employee relationships, vacation times, guaranteed employment, Dilpomatic relations, alternative transportations, etc.

How is it racist for us if we had an official language but it isn't if European countries and South American, and Middle Eastern countries, and Far Eastern Countries.... SOunds like we are putting us into in a pariah position again compared to the rest of the world - just going our own unilateral way again and on the outside looking in to the rest of the world

t

[Cleita]

33. You learn to speak the language that the majority in that

demography speaks, however, to make any one language the official language is fascist and meant for selective enforcement and control of a population. Most people recognize that American English is the international language of business. There is nothing formal about it. It just evolved that way and has global acceptance.

Also, all Americans know that the business of government is conducted in English. There is no need for a law. Maybe one day, English might not be spoken very much and you will be stuck like the Catholic Church conducting rites in Latin because it was proclaimed the official language of Christiandom.

On the news last night they said it was just a formality, but I can see the bigots now insisting that everyone has to speak English that they can hear around them because it's the law. Never mind that a group of people who are the same ethnicity are speaking in their mother tongue like in a restaurant or in a cafeteria among themselves.

I really think this dictatorial edict of favoring one language above all others stinks. Not only that, we the people had no vote or say in it. It was decided for us.

[Maestro]

34. No

It's not needed. Let's focus on more pressing issues. Here is a link with some good info. I have met this gentleman before at different conferences and even had dinner with him once in Arizona. He's incredible knowledgeable when it comes to language issues.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/engonly.htm

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/question.htm