Should we recognize English as the official language of the US of A?

[Maynard Keenan]

 

[bhsmte]

There are only 8 countries in the world without a national language.
Every first world country has a national language except the U.S. and Britain.
http://www.englishlanguagefaqs.com/2014/05/which-countries-do-not-have-official.html

http://allafrica.com/stories/201508200681.html

A national language can unite the people, why don't we have one on the federal level?

How does a national language unite people?

 

[Aryeh Jay]

No but local governments could. If San Fancisco China Town breaks off to be its own municipality they could pass local ordinances in Mandarin. Or Miami could start passing ordinances in either Spanish or Portuguese. Dearborn MI could pass them in Arabic.

Makes sense because Cantonese is the primary language spoken in the San Francisco Chinatown

 

[Maren]

There are things other countries can do better than us that we can learn from. The unifying ability of one language is powerful. We are a melting pot but we also cannot be completely different from one another. We are 50 states but we are also the United States. We need an official language, not everyone needs to just speak one language, but everyone should speak the language. I said should, it is not necessary. By making English the official language, we aren't forcing anyone to speak it, we are only saying you should speak it. It is very helpful, and it is the language the government recognizes.

We are also giving the heads-up to people, that, our laws will only be in English, public employees will only communicate in English (translation services are just costly, and the cost shouldn't be passed onto the majority).

Language is different than just culture. Language is suppose to allow us to communicate. It creates understanding.

Also, it is much harder to get the majority to learn other languages, than have the minority learn ours. It is just unpractical to get most Americans to learn another language.

Humans need the ability to understand each other to get things done. We can have different cultures, they can speak another language, but they need to learn the majority speaking language. It has been tested throughout time again and again. A employer and a employee needs to speak the same language. A servicer and client need to speak the same language.

It is practically costly and ineffective to always have a translator.

Yes, as I pointed out previously, it worked so well for Belgium when they tried to force everyone to use a common language. It really brought them together [/sarcasm].

 

[ChristJudgeOfAll]

Yes, as I pointed out previously, it worked so well for Belgium when they tried to force everyone to use a common language. It really brought them together [/sarcasm].

udafhekaehf zdaefheuafhk putatheakjfza
understand?

 

[DaisyDay]

Some even have TWO (eg Finland) and one even has FOUR (Switzerland)

What is Switzerland's fourth?

 

[ChristJudgeOfAll]

You mean the language they invented that we use and people want to make official? It is called English for a reason.

Why?


There is nothing in the constitution that says we are a Christian nation and nothing that says our language needs to be English. There is no requirement to speak English to be an American.

You are right, there is nothing in the constitution that requires people to speak English, and that is why we will pass a statue to require it for citizenship.

There is nothing in the constitution that says rape isn't allowed. Doesn't mean we can't pass statues forbidding rape.

As far as why.... so the majority of the people in this country doesn't listen to someone and hear udefhakefuhakehfkzhfaehfkeaghaegkuhkeadghak

 

[Blank Stair]

I think it's cute how everyone is pretending this wouldn't instantly become a stick with which to beat non-English speakers.

Not everyone thinks as you do.

 

[Skaloop]

Yes, we should. Its been our de facto language for ages, and thanks to the Chinese not being able to use their own language effectively for computing combined with our business dealing with them, english is probably the most widespread language on the planet.

I like how you used "de facto", a non-English term, to argue for having English as an official language.

 

[Maren]

udafhekaehf zdaefheuafhk putatheakjfza
understand?

As I mentioned in the previous post on the thread, Belgium originally had a single official language (French). It didn't work out for them (they now have three), including the fact that the country is largely polarized based on the two main languages (French and Dutch) -- even more than Democrat vs. Republican in the US. Just a couple of years ago, Belgium went 589 days with no functioning government because the politicians wouldn't work with the politicians speaking a different language, even though they belonged to similar political parties (either both conservative or both liberal).

So is this explained simply enough for you?

 

[amanuensis63]

What is Switzerland's fourth?

Romansh apparently.

 

[amanuensis63]

As I mentioned in the previous post on the thread, Belgium originally had a single official language (French). It didn't work out for them (they now have three), including the fact that the country is largely polarized based on the two main languages (French and Dutch) -- even more than Democrat vs. Republican in the US. Just a couple of years ago, Belgium went 589 days with no functioning government because the politicians wouldn't work with the politicians speaking a different language, even though they belonged to similar political parties (either both conservative or both liberal).

So is this explained simply enough for you?

In my travels to Belgium I was fascinated to learn that the north is mostly the Flemish and more economically advantaged while the south is more Walloon and more agricultural and more economically disadvantaged. In a sense a microcosm of the US.

 

[ChristJudgeOfAll]

As I mentioned in the previous post on the thread, Belgium originally had a single official language (French). It didn't work out for them (they now have three), including the fact that the country is largely polarized based on the two main languages (French and Dutch) -- even more than Democrat vs. Republican in the US. Just a couple of years ago, Belgium went 589 days with no functioning government because the politicians wouldn't work with the politicians speaking a different language, even though they belonged to similar political parties (either both conservative or both liberal).

So is this explained simply enough for you?

So that means we need a national language more than anything. We can't have a 2nd language emerging in the country. Right now we need to establish English as the official, before this country becomes divided with 2 powerful languages.

If everyone in Belgium learned French, they wouldn't have had the whole dutch vs. french problem.

 

[DaisyDay]

and we started out speaking english

We who? Some of us started out speaking Dutch, some of us German, some of us French, many of us Spanish, Norwegian, Hawaiian, Inupiat, etc. etc. etc.

This thread reminds me of an old joke:
Q: What do you call someone who speaks many languages?

A: Multilingual

Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?

A: Bilingual

Q: What do you call someone who speaks only one language?

A: American

 

[seashale76]

You mean the language they invented that we use and people want to make official? It is called English for a reason.

Not to be a smart aleck on this, but non-rhoticity (/r/ dropping) is more modern and rhoticity (pronouncing the /r/) is the older form of English. (Linguistics and the history of language development is one of my personal interests.)

Personally, I'm for the US having English and Spanish as official languages, as those are the two most widely spoken.

*There are around 24 dialects of American English alone (some of which are non-rhotic too). Also, Shakespeare's dialect of English wasn't anything like RP English, but was rhotic (in fact many puns are missed without the original pronunciation). Odd facts.

 

[KitKatMatt]

There's no reason to do so. All official stuff is in English already.

Just because most places have an official language doesn't mean all places need to have one. We already use English as the default primary language.

 

[sea oat]

Yes. Go for it.

 

[morningstar2651]

We can certainly use some uniting!!!

If English became the official language today, what changes tomorrow to make us more united? In what way would you feel closer to me as your fellow American that you didn't today?

 

[Maren]

So that means we need a national language more than anything. We can't have a 2nd language emerging in the country. Right now we need to establish English as the official, before this country becomes divided with 2 powerful languages.

If everyone in Belgium learned French, they wouldn't have had the whole dutch vs. french problem.

Who says that everyone in Belgium didn't learn French? Many of the Flemish people I met while living there spoke 4 languages (Dutch, French, English and German), pretty much all of them speak English. The issue was, because French was being forced on them they refused to speak it -- and that is at least one of the reasons it has blown into such an issue.

As we keep pointing out, the US has not had an official language in 240 years and it has never been a serious problem. It isn't actually a real problem now, as Hispanic immigrants (even the illegal ones) are learning English at similar (or even faster) rates than other non-English speaking immigrants. They know they need English to really succeed in this country. By passing an English as official language law, we risk what has happened in Belgium -- that people being forced to learn English will make them determined to hang onto their native language; particularly when any such type of English "Only" law is directly aimed at Hispanics.

 

[Armoured]

If English became the official language today, what changes tomorrow to make us more united? In what way would you feel closer to me as your fellow American that you didn't today?

Well, you get to unite with other people in their now state sanctioned smug superiority towards non-English speakers, obviously. It means it won't be racist when you tsk tsk at people speaking Spanish in Public.