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

So English has been great for 400 years, without any official status, so why does it need to be an "Official Language"?
Why do we need a new government bureaucracy to oversee an official language?

 

^ Hey it may create jobs lol.

 

Me move to England?

The thought has occurred, and I have plenty of family in England, but my business wouldn't travel very well.

Thank you for the invitation nevertheless.

 

Why not? Learning another language is interesting and can help you to think in a different manner, remember that language is thought. Speaking of languages, i find english to be quite unexpressive, cold and sometimes rude. Not to be racist but i think you all should learn at least one neo-latin language, they are all softer and more expressive than the aphonic english.

 

I totally agree that learning another language to at least basic conversational level, is both interesting and useful in widening one's perceptions.

As for the English language, I fear your analysis is marred by the data you are using. English has the largest lexicon of any language extant, and is probably the most expressive tongue (in the hands of a competent user) you will find. Read Keats, Shelley, or Wilfred Owens - not to mention The Bard. And as an aside, I do not see how any language can be aphonic - as aphony describes the inability to produce vocal sounds.

However, the average English user has a working vocabulary of possibly 20,000 words (less than 3% of the English lexicon) and it is even worse in some (nominally) English speaking societies - where every descriptive adjective and adverb has been replaced with 'great' and 'awesome'. To rate the language by such incompetent performers is to make an error of judgment.

The Romance languages - in particular French and Italian (personally, I do not care for the sound of Spanish) are indeed pleasing to the ear - even to one who is not competent therein.

And there is nothing racist in your considering the Latin based languages beautiful - it is simply a matter of personal preference. Many people I know dislike the sound of German (the closest relative of English) and consider it guttural. Little could be further from the truth, as both German and English can be spoken beautifully - but German is the more logical of the two when it comes to pronunciation. Pronunciation varies with every language (largely due to regional and socio-economic influences) but perhaps the greatest variation is found in English. Compare a speaker of Received Pronunciation (the educated accent of Southern England, sometimes known as BBC English) to one from Glasgow, rural Australia, Pretoria, or Louisiana.

Having dealt with the expressive issue, I can only ask what you mean when you say English is sometimes rude. Did you mean 'rude' in the original sense of primitive or relatively undeveloped, lacking precision, etc. or in the modern sense of ill-mannered and/or discourteous. To which I must reply that no language in and of itself can be the latter - that is entirely dependent upon the user - and it may be seen as unreasonable or ill-informed to consider a language with an enormous lexicon, and quite complex grammar - not to mention one which has become the lingua franca of the world - as primitive.

 

Well, by expressivity i wasn't talking about the number of words you see, i was referring to the verbal result of the english language when spoken. You take an englishman and make him recite a drama, then you take an italian and make him recite the same drama. The public knows perfectly both languages. The drama recited in italian is of a higher level of intensity and i think every man in the world who knows both english and italian agrees with me.

By " aphonic " of course i don't mean it doesn't make any sound, i mean the curt sounds of the language, which are typical of all germanic languages.

English is a very mixed hybrid of a language, first it was celtic, mixed with roman latin when conquered by romans, then later mixed with germanic dialects brought by germanic invaders. Then norman invaders mixed it with ancient french, resulting in a softer language, thanks to it's influence. Modern day english is basically this.

Last, i don't see what the fact that english is the modern lingua franca has to do with your statements, it only means that englishmen were the majority of european settlers who came and conquered america, making it a vast world power. This is the reason for english to be today's lingua franca, it has nothing to do with the language itself. It could have been even swedish, but that doesn't mean swedish is a better language than others.

Btw, as the OP says, there is no pratical need to learn another language, but if you have to learn one and your mother language is english, let it be one among spanish, french and italian. One could say that chinese has a better practical utility, but good luck to learn chinese...

 

No we don't need to have English the official language. We need an equal representation of every one of the 6,800 languages in the world so in order to form a more perfect Babel.

Maybe we should outlaw English and make those bastards learn to speak Swahili or something. They've been living too high on the hog for too long so it's time they get their proper come uppin's.

Besides, a country with a million different languages is easier to Balkanize and control by the ruling elite. I won't name names.


Although on second thought, trying to print instructions for 7000 languages on all our made in China products would make the manuals a little cumbersome. And then there are all the road signs, maps, books, newspapers, telephone answering services, and automated message machines, and etc.
And we will need to have news broadcasts in as many languages so everyone is guaranteed to get the same propaganda.

Hooray for multiculturalism.

Death to whitey.

 

LOL, I know what you mean, but histrionic does not have the same meaning as expressive. I agree that an Englishman is likely to be more understated than an Italian when recounting an incident, irrespective of the language ultilised - it is a matter of temperament rather than linguistics. The English language by its very complexity is more capable of imparting subtle meaning.

Then, with respect, may I suggest you use another word? Aphonic has the clear and sole meaning of incapable of producing vocal sound.

English is indeed a language which has borrowed extensively from other tongues, but it is not a hybrid in the strict sense of the word, and its structure has little to do with Celtic languages. English was brought to the British Isles in the 4th century in the form of Old German by the Anglo-Saxon invader/settlers. It was not mixed with Germanic dialects - its basis is Old German, and it is linguistically described as Low German - it is an Indo-Germanic language. The Norman invasion naturally introduced a great many Norman French words to the language, and the later emergence of the largest empire the world has seen, resulted in the adoption of numerous native words from around the world - the combination of all this has resulted in possibly the richest language on earth.

English has become the lingua franca of the world. Not just the language from which the American dialect emerged - and it was not just Englishmen who conquered the North American continent. The Spanish, the French, and the Dutch, had extensive colonial possessions in North America, and Spanish is still extensively spoken there. And the fact that English is the world lingua franca does not it itself make it a superior language. Of course the extent of the British Empire meant that a larger proportion of humanity were exposed to English than any other language, and the influence of that empire meant a great many people found it advantageous to learn and use English.

That is a matter of preference, as there is little inherent superiority in the Romance languages. Chinese may or may not be advantageous in the future, but if you have travelled to many areas of South East Asia where people of Chinese origin live - they speak many languages, not just Mandarin. And English is the lingua franca of those societies as well. If one is speaking of the European continent, the three most useful languages would be English, German, and French (and French only because your average Frenchman is so nationalistic, he refuses to speak English).

 

Before you make any statements i might ask if you do speak both english and italian. I do, so i think i have a better basis to speak from. And you say english is very complex? Lol, it's one of the simplest languages of the world, and one of the easiest to learn too. It's grammar is extremely simplistic compared to italian, german or french. I think you don't know what you are talking about.

Again, you are mistaking complexity with the number of words. You may adopt an immense number of new words but your grammar remains the same, and english grammar is embarassing compared to romance languages, expecially italian, in fact i had a very easy time to learn english. The number of words only means you borrowed many words from other languages to describe things which were missing in your vocabulary, but it doesn't add anything to the complexity of the language.

You got the point. Example: if troglodites conquered the world, it doesn't mean trogloditic is a superior language, it only means troglodites were good warriors and conquerors. In the case of american english, they won many battles against the french and the spanish, that's the reason why US speaks english and not french or spanish.

 

How would this be far right in any way? I really don't get that.

But, an official language is pretty much required for practicality's sake. And even if one doesn't set a de jure one, there'll be on de facto no matter what. The up-side of it is that it gives more incentives to learn the language of the land and thus assimilate faster. With regards to non-immigrant communities speaking a minority language ( a la quebequis in canada, or lapps in sweden) one must of course pay some respect to that they're as indigenous as the majority and have as much right to their language. Such areas should be bilingual, but the main language must still be in use there for even if it's not 'just' or 'right', it's bloody inefficent to not have them learn the majority language. Practicality is what's most important at the end of the day, respect be damned.

 

Look I have enormous respect for people like yourself, who are multilingual in the practical sense, and I claim no expertise in the subject of linguistics, nor am I expert as a grammarian. I speak English and German (the latter imperfectly) and am aware of the complexity of German grammar, but I am also aware that while I am not in any way expert in English grammar - it is by no means as simple as you seem to think it is.

And I do say this with a great deal of respect, but your writing indicates that English is not your first language, and you may not be as expert grammatically therein as you think you are. No one expert in the use of English would fail to capitalise proper nouns such as English, French, Italian, and Spanish (or the personal pronoun). Nor would such a person misspell embarrassing, especially, and troglodyte, or misuse the term simplistic when he meant to impart the meaning of simple. Simplistic means treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler than they really are - which is not the same thing as simple.

In view of which, I am happy to accept your ex cathedra statements upon the grammatical structure of Romance languages, but less accepting of your dicta upon the nature and usage of English.

AFIK, English grammar and usage is sufficiently complex to allow subtlety and nuance amongst those expert in its use. Unfortunately, I do not count myself amongst their number.

 

Sure, but if a person somehow managed to get around it I have no sympathy for them nor should we NOT make English our official language because of them.

 

well, english is actually a rather easy language I'd say. it doesn't have accusative or dative cases, or any of the other cases other languages might have. The very irregular spelling is what could be difficult, as well as certain sounds (especially th). But it could be much, much worse. Like swedish. Learning swedish is probably like hell I think. We have more vowels than most languages, we have a rather unique way of stressing words which can be confusing, we have melody to our language, we have very many digraphs, and many very similar consonants, and our spelling doesn't reflect prnounciation very well. Italian ain't got nothing on us, just saying.

 

Nope you have to have lived her 15 years, 20 years if 50, and it MAY be waived not necessarily waved.

We Americans should be proud of our common language and strive for the goal that we ALL can communicate with each other and live in our AMERICAN culture and not become an ambiguous people.

 

I would agree with all that you write above, but the simplicity of English grammar does not render it inferior in expressing complex concepts - it just does it in its own way. The great works of Shakespeare, Marlowe, or Dickens, are no less capable at expressing the vagaries of the human condition, than those of say - Ibsen or Flaubert.

 

English already belongs to a nation. Invent your own language and call it something else, like "Americanese", to differentiate it from the real thing.

 

oh of course. I wouldn't be suprised if english turns out to have the most words of any language, and the one which can best express complex concepts. but gramatically, it's still simple. Simplicitity is actually something positive in my view.

 

English is simple and can express many concepts thanks to the great number of words, but it is a germanic language nonetheless, thus is less expressive than romance language, say less capable of express one's mood and toughts to it's best extent. If you know both english and a romance language then there is no way you disagree with me. As for german and swedish, they are even less expressive because of the many curt and guttural sounds. As for the grammar, italian has 7 verbal modes, and 8 verbal tenses, it is not uncommon even for learned italians to make errors when using complicated verbal conjugations.

 

Germanic languages are inherently less expressive in comparison to romance languages? guttural sounds make a language less expressive?

 

Yes indeed. Hard sounds make a language less expressive and friendly. Btw, i may ask you the same question, do you speak a romance language at least to an average degree? If not then you are talking without a basis to judge from.

English grammar is simple, period. You said you speak german so you know how complicated it is in comparison ( i know some german grammar too ). I don't understand how you can say english grammar is not simple if you speak german, which is quite complicated ( not as complicated as roman latin though, from which german grammar comes from ).

 

I've studied latin, and I study language in general, european ones in particular.

This about hard sounds making a language less expressive and 'friendly', is that based on something or is it just your subjective view of it? Also, enlgish is, I'd say, softer than italian. No rolling r's for example. Also, I could make the case that given swedish's much greater variety of vowels and consonants, it's possibly more expressive than italian.

German grammar doesn't come from latin... If you were trying to give the impression of being knowledgeable of language, you failed here. Have you heard of proto-germanic? That's from where german evolved.

 

You studied latin but latin is not a romance language, romance languages evolved from it, but are much, much softer. Latin is a hell of a language to learn, and it sounds quite hard when spoken. Italian, even if derived from latin, is a totally different language, softer and easier to master, and with a different grammar.

So where do accusative, dative and nominative cases come from? Why do they have neutral gender like roman latin?

 

But government has to run its business in some language, government can't use all the languages on the planet. Whatever the language government uses is the official language .

 

The r's aren't very soft are they? I think english sounds much softer than italian.

proto-germanic. Do you imagine that the germans once had no cases, and just adopted them from latin just for the fun of it? No, germans have always had cases. Latin and german ultimately stem from the same language you know, and the similarities of cases is due to that.

 

I realize this is from months ago.
But I don't think it is about speaking, but has more to do with what language should the US gov't communicate with. If they have to put everything out in multiple languages in could get costly and maybe confusing.