Should English be the official language of the U.S?

That happens with any language. Even people born in the UK will have a hard time understanding someone with a cockney dialect if they are not used to it. The number of words used is limited to your life as I am never likely going to talk at any great lengths about anything related to medicine or astrology since I hate hospitals and I don't believe in astrology.

The one big difference is that when English adopts a word they usually don't make huge changes to it, not compared to other languages. Spanish mangles everything because it has to add the feminine or masculine suffixes to every word since that is how the language operates. Computer which is already three syllables is now computadora which is now five syllables. That is just stupid. Spanish does that with lots of words that are not already part of the language. English simply takes a word like garage or burrito and most of the time just sticks it in its lexicon without changing it, at most you will get mispronunciations.

If you take a bunch of words that originated from a foreign language and were adopted into the english language and showed them to a native speakers of those same foreign languages they would easily be able to identify them while it would be much harder for and english speaker to identify words that originated in english and were translated into something else.

And the reason I know all of this is because I took three years of spanish over 15 years ago and that is the ONLY thing I remember my teacher telling me other than the hardcore swear words that the Mexican girl taught me, and of course bano which is the one essential spanish word I might need at some point.

 

You make some apposite and interesting (particularly in relation to the Spanish language) points. However, I disagree with the concept that one needs an abiding interest in a subject in order to gain some knowledge of the terms employed therein. I detest the sport of basketball, yet I know (from reading and conversation) what an alley oop, a backboard, and a dunk are.

My vocabulary is a fraction of what it should be, but I can see the utility in learning and using descriptive terms rather than trite generalisations. If someone asked me my impressions of a society I had recently visited - I could reply that it was 'great', or I could say that it was an interesting amalgam of modern architecture, sharp business practice, and 19th century social attitudes. The former gives the listener only the most diffuse impression of approval, whilst the latter at least attampts some critical analysis.

The pronunciation within the numerous English dialects varies enormously - both in the UK and elsewhere in the English speaking world - but other than the USA, the spelling is standardised, as are the rules of grammar and syntax. Dialectical choices of words are often unfamiliar to a speaker of RP, whether it occurs in Alabama, Singapore, or within the sound of the Bow Bells, but in general the meaning is understood, and, of course, pronunciation is even more varied. "How are you la?" is probably as easily understood as "How you doin'?" as a form of greeting, but a more extensive vocabulary is always more useful than a trite and limited one.

 

In the World of aviation, English is the official language...as designated by the international civil aviation regulatory agencies..

Imagine an aircrew fluent only in Mandarin, trying to communicate with air traffic control in Sydney, Australia.

Heck try getting IFR clearance from a towered airport in Uzbekistan with a controller who speaks broken English at best...
you'd be up (*)(*)(*)(*) creek without a paddle if even this broken English wasn't a required part of international civil aviation policy.

 

It's not an official language without a government department to oversee it's usage.
Should this be done at the state level or the federal level.
Important question, since determining an official language is not one of the enumerated powers set forth in the constitution.
But I suppose with some activist judging the Supreme Court could find it in there somewhere.
Now should this be a cabinet level department that oversees the language? With a Secretary of the Language, and a staff sufficient to challenge?
How much you budget for the overseeing of the official language? Should the federal fund English Departments since they would in essence be doing the work of the government? Would poets be put on the public payroll?

 

I can go you one better than that, since these words have only two pronunciations of the vowels contained therein (either as a long "A" or as a long "E").

How about pour, sour, and tour? It would appear that they would all rhyme; yet they do not.

 

Is that fair considering that the community predates the civil war and for the early part of the states history french was the predominant language and still remains widely spoken?

 

To the victor go the spoils, there is no 'fair' in reality, so no need to pretend we can create such a thing...

 

I would like to see tagalog become the official language of the United States. It's easy to learn regardless of what your primary language is.

 

Actually, though sour is generally pronounced with (almost) two syllables, pour and tour rhyme pretty closely (both being monosyllabic).

 

And then there are words that spelled differently, yet the pronunciation is identical, like orphan and often......

 

My wife is a nurse in a very busy hospital, and must deal daily with individuals that do not speak English and thus have no means of understanding what is required to recover from surgery. Though she can often call an interpreter service, they do not cover all languages and much is lost in translation. Many of these people must return to the hospital due to failure to understand what is required to recover.
I have often thought that those who do not bother to learn the language of the country they have moved to, should simply be denied services rather than expect the host country to learn theirs. Just as with the idea of changing our society and laws (Sharia) to the desires of migrants, these people can either blend in or get out.

 

Bon temps roulez then....

- - - Updated - - -

Like the Pilgrims?

 

If by chance I lived 400 years ago....perhaps. But, as I live in the current United States rather than the place that will eventually become it, I think not.

 

OK, so what if spanglish becomes dominant in the media, eh hombre?
Mio Dio, what if that happened muchacha?
Are you going to vamos?
The language is fluid, it's different today than it was 100 years ago, it will be different 100 years from now.
Why would I want to spend my money imposing language restrictions on people who haven't been born yet, homes?
That seems double plus stupid, don't it?

 

Since they all speak English and conduct government business is English no need to change a thing. There is not a parish or town in Lousisiana that conducts official business in cajun, ie Acadian, French which is different from classical French. In fact when I live in Duson and Lafayette for 8 years back in the late 70's and early 80's cajun French was a dying language and there was a move to put more emphasis on it to teach the new generations that were rejecting it. I also hosted a girl from Belgium who spoke French and English, her father was American, and she said she could understand about 75% of cajun French but many words were different especially more modern words.

 

Creole and Spanish were also widely spoken, but English has always been the predominate language as it is today, do you really think children in the Acadiana region of Louisiana don't learn English as their first language?

 

What If?

I had assumed we were discussing current realities.....but I suppose your alternate version of this country and time could be interesting.

 

Agreed. Making English the national language doesn't bar other languages being spoken, but it does clearly allow for us to engage properly in business relations, transactions, etc. It would also be a great symbol of pride.

This country has the least amount of pride in it, and pride in one's self allows a person to conduct themselves in the right manner.

 

The point is english is the default language, and as long as it has the things going for it that it does, it will remain the default language, but it will also change and evolve and incorporate words from other languages, some common usages will fade and mean something completely different in time.
What would be the point of declaring "An Official Language", what would it change?
Other than costing money, to form a government agency to oversee the language, and forming a bureaucracy to police the language for "proper usage", proper signage, proper this, proper that, we have gotten on fine without an official language, I just think the effort would be ludicrous.

 

Going by the way you seem to define....we already have an official language.
How many road signs have you seen in Spanish?
Stop signs in Sandscrit?
Name cards in Arabic?

How many business names are Chinese?

 

When I go to Boston I drive by signs in Spanish, Chinese, Thai, French and Kriol, as well as some in English.
In the Chinatown section, street signs are in English and Chinese.
We don't have an official language, you can use anything that works.

 

I would be interested to see such road signs, as this is new to me.....please provide.

 

(My bold)

There have always been multiple cultures in what is now the US - Native Peoples - a lot, & various language groups; Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, German, Johnny-come-lately British, Irish, Italians, etc. US English is a blend of a lot of borrowed words for plants, crops, animals - & borrowings for whole cultures. Most of the cowboy/SW language is borrowed from Spanish/Mexican Spanish, & in turn borrowed from the Native Peoples who lived there.

kowtow - is a Chinese loan word.

We can require that everyone who does business with the US do so in English. That might have worked immediately post-1945, but I don't think it would work v. well now. (We're not the only game in town anymore.)

Language requirements are not PC - itself a concept borrowed from the Communist Party. In retail settings, the stores want to sell more widgets - & so widget instructions come in Spanish, French, German, etc. & so does the signage @ the big box stores - again, they want more of the green language, they don't care one way or the other about cultural domination.

The police, EMTs, firemen, ER staff, government intake - they all need to be able to communicate with people. For the first responders, it's a matter of life or death. The practical tactic is to learn basic Q&A in the target language - they don't have time to go into a Socratic dialogue with someone who's bleeding out, or if people are still in a burning building, etc.

 

google boston chinatown and then select images

We also have the North End where you can hear Italian being spoken on the street, and when I go into the Walmart in Lynn, Massachusetts I'll hear as many as 5 or 6 different languages being spoken.

The same in Downtown crossing, the main shopping district of Boston, the same on Duval St in Key West, diversity is cool.

 

(My bold)

Not all these countries have always spoken a single language, & that was never true of what is now the US. We had mostly Native Peoples back when, then Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch & finally UK. Followed by massive influxes of Italian, German, E. European, & annexation of Native Peoples & Spanish & Mexicans (& Cubans & Puerto Ricans & Philippine) by conquest.

Spanish is a foreign language - with many national dialects. A foreign dialect for US English would be UK or Scottish or Irish or Australian - maybe Canadian, but that's fairly close to US English, I expect.

Many people in the US speak - or @ least have studied a second language. If we expect to sell our goods in the World, I suggest we work a lot harder @ learning other languages & cultures, instead of wrapping ourselves up in our little security blanket & pretending that shouting & speaking slowly is the same as communicating with a foreigner.