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Should English be declared the official language of the United States?

Should English be declared the official language of the United States?

  • Total voters
    79
I have no problem with migrant workers with their working visas not knowing English but yeah I think it should be the official language of the United States. I mean doesn't Canada have English and French as their official languages and Spanish as the official language in Spain and Mexico? Seems to only make sense to me and if it benefits racist or not whatever.

On that note, if we make the official language English I don't want to be talking to anyone on a phone lone that says "Thank you sir John how may I help you today." all the way from India, and bring those jobs back to the United States.
 
MistressNomad said:
Please. Every time someone says they support making English an official language in America, someone says they just hate Mexicans. It's been racial for pretty much the whole debate.

No, it isn't. We live in a different time, with a different culture, and everyone who perpetrated those things has been dead for a very long time. What happened hundreds of years ago is irrelevant to the situation now, and irrelevant to the discussion of what is the best course of action now.
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While no one here is seems to be denying that atrocities were committed in the past, you saying that they are irrelevant to the present does not necessarily make it so.
Those who forget about the past are doomed to repeat it.So are those who choose to ignore it.

And again I ask,is there a guarantee that the atrocities committed in the past cannot and will not be committed in the future.
I say while times my change, people are people, and people do will do really nasty things to one another if allowed to.

And what's the uses of making English "official" if it is not "enforceable"' or the ultimately "mandatory"?
 
Verthaine said:
While no one here is seems to be denying that atrocities were committed in the past, you saying that they are irrelevant to the present does not necessarily make it so.
Those who forget about the past are doomed to repeat it.So are those who choose to ignore it.

And again I ask,is there a guarantee that the atrocities committed in the past cannot and will not be committed in the future.
I say while times my change, people are people, and people do will do really nasty things to one another if allowed to.

And what's the uses of making English "official" if it is not "enforceable"' or the ultimately "mandatory"?
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Assuming the course of action were anything like actions from the past that may be true, but it isn't.

There's only a handful of countries on the planet that don't have an official language (or sometimes a couple). I don't see genocides and forced assimilation happening around the concept of a national language in the entire developed world apart from us and Japan that has a national language. We are not discussing anything other than the same thing those 100+ countries have already done.

It's not related to the current discussion at all.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
Its OUR land. We won it with our blood.
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By spilling the blood of the people who already lived here for thousands of years.
By ethnic cleansing.
By genocide.
By culturecide to a indigenous population that was only defending the only home it knew for thousands of year,defending it's culture and it's way of life.
It's the same thing Rome did.

It seems to me that you are saying "Might Makes Right"
Those who conquer always end up getting conquered in the end.
Making "English Official" is not going to stop an determined invasion.

Gee,having your birthland overunned,having your way of life threatened,by an invading culture/population sucks,doesn't it?

[/quote]
Plus it is not the fault of the US that Mexico is a **** hole. Italians are doing well with Italy.... and so on.[/QUOTE]
Are you saying that we've never stuck our noses into our neighbors business to the south.
 
Yes. The majority of the country already speaks it.

The majority of all legal processes are held in English.

Hey get this...the Contstitution is written in English.

All of our laws are on the books in English.

Our textbooks are in English.

I can keep going.

But my favorite, most selfish reason is that I'm sick and tired of pressing one for English when the VAST majority already speaks it!
 
Goshin said:
We have a large and growing group of immigrants, mainly hispanic, mostly from Mexico; many of whom are here illegally; many of whom are not intrested in assimilating and "Becoming American" but simply reaping the benefits of our system; many of whom are making little or no effort to learn English.

How do you get by in a country when you don't speak the most common lanugage? Answer: you hang out with those who speak YOUR language; do biz with them, work for them, identify with them. It is yet another way of creating schizm within the nation, where you have a large and growing group who does not identify with the mainstream culture at all, doesn't speak the language, and doesn't really care as long as we bend over backwards to accomodate THEM.

Too much of this and we really will become "Two Americas"... or three, or four, etc.

Maintaining a sense of "we're all Americans" can be difficult enough in the diversity that this nation has.... lacking the ability to SPEAK to each other is a good way to finish off any sense of fellow-citizenship that might have grown between this and that group.

When you walk into the middle of a group of people who are speaking a language you don't know, what is your gut reaction? Do you think of them as fellow Americans, or assume they are "other", "alien", "foreigners"? Most people assume the latter. There's a reason for that.

How do you deal with people with whom you cannot communicate? They don't speak your language and you don't speak theirs? The truth is, most of the time you shrug and walk on. Since you can't communicate with them, your ability to interact with them is severely limited.

That's no way for the citizenry of a nation to live, unable to communicate. That's why we need a common language. The proliferation of immigrants both legal and not who are NOT assimiliating is why we need to make it official.
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Sorry Goshin, but you are seeing the surface and not the depth. It has been my experience that most second generation hispanics are multilingual, and by third generation speak Spanish as a second language if at all. This has been largely true throughout our history, as has claims that certain groups just ain't fitting in. Used to be, the Irish just where not making the effort to fit in, living in their own neighborhoods, marrying other Irish, going to their own churches. Don't forget the Italians. They even spoke their own language, for a couple generations.

Assimilation is inevitable. Making a major change to our laws to appease a few scared people is not going to speed it up.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
In 2011 America, in order to get a part time job, you MUST speak Spanish. This is total crap. And thats in Chicago! The middle of America. We 100% need to stop illegals getting our tax dollars for support and THEY need to get the hell out OR speak English. It is very insulting that they cant / wont. We provide them MANY benefits and they kick us in the ass. That is not honerable and should not be tolerated.
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How many languages can you speak?
 
The Giant Noodle said:
Its OUR land. We won it with our blood. Plus it is not the fault of the US that Mexico is a **** hole. Italians are doing well with Italy.... and so on.
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You bled how much making this "our" country? Why are you so focused on Mexicans. What do you have against people who are in this country legally? Some of those actually have bled for this country. And when the Italians came here, hey, they spoke their own language for a couple generations.
 
Verthaine said:
By spilling the blood of the people who already lived here for thousands of years.
By ethnic cleansing.
By genocide.
By culturecide to a indigenous population that was only defending the only home it knew for thousands of year,defending it's culture and it's way of life.
It's the same thing Rome did.

It seems to me that you are saying "Might Makes Right"
Those who conquer always end up getting conquered in the end.
Making "English Official" is not going to stop an determined invasion.

Gee,having your birthland overunned,having your way of life threatened,by an invading culture/population sucks,doesn't it?
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Oh, and I guess Native Americans never went to war with EACH OTHER? Right.

This is real life. There's no "original sin." Everyone has someone in their family tree with blood on their hands, if you go back far enough. It's just DNA - it says nothing about who that individual is as a person. I bet my ancestors had slaves. Does that make me pro-slavery? I bet your ancestors killed some people from other Native American tribes. Should I blame you?

Trying to guilt people who have nothing to do with whatever historical thing you won't let go of is completely pointless to the conversation. Nothing you've said has anything to do with having a national language. You're not even participating in the debate. Just flinging about emotionally-laden but argumentatively fallacious side-tracks from the conversation the rest of us are trying to have.

Most developed countries, with the best standard of living and the lowest crime, have a national language. The implementation of declaring an official language is well-known, well-practiced, and has nothing to do with ethnic, cultural, or territorial war. It is obvious to everyone but you that what you're saying has no bearing on the concept at hand.
 
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Redress said:
How many languages can you speak?
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Which of course begs the question - if all they speak is their native language, why should we do any different.
 
Southwestern USA is going Spanny. Fast.

I take consolation in knowing that neither English nor Spanish is spoken well here. I won't live long enough to see it, thank God, but one day, everyone will be walking around with their pants around their ankles, trying to figure out how to make, "Yo!" sound like like, "Can I have a job?"
 
BDBoop said:
Which of course begs the question - if all they speak is their native language, why should we do any different.
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That is all I speak. No one in the government is asking you nor I to speak anything but english.
 
Henrin said:
Changing the goal post is not going to save you. For one they came from England and Scotland, second what happened with Indians is not comparable. The people that settled here were not trying to be part of their tribe or join the Indians societies. All that was happening is the people that came first were creating a society on the same land and trying to deal with Indians. They had little interest in working with Indians at that time, and it wasn't until later that even become a factor, but even then they had little interest in bothering with them. They mostly just wanted them to go away and leave their new society alone. The Constitution of the country even made a point to say straight out they are a different society. Don't you even see that they were not trying to be one, that they were purposely trying to stay separate? I don't see how you can say, well you didn't, so they shouldn't. Its not a comparable situation.
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They came HERE to the Indians' country and wanted the Indians to "go away".

You just made my point.

They had no interest in learning the language since they wanted the Native Peoples to "go away" - by any means necessary, as we know from history.

Doesn't leave any room to dictate to the current wave of immigrants what's right and what isn't.
 
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stelz said:
They came HERE to the Indians' country and wanted the Indians to "go away".

You just made my point.

They had no interest in learning the language since they wanted the Native Peoples to "go away" - by any means necessary, as we know from history.

Doesn't leave any room to dictate to the current wave of immigrants what's right and what isn't.
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Americans weren't immigrants. You never even had a point, let alone that I made your point.
 
ludahai said:
Should English be declared the official language of the United States?
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I'm just wondering when the Americans will switch to American instead of English. :)
 
Henrin said:
Americans weren't immigrants. You never even had a point, let alone that I made your point.
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You apparently think England and Scotland are somewhere in the US. Have you tried google?
 
Canell said:
I'm just wondering when the Americans will switch to American instead of English. :)
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That's actually a good point considering that every region of the country speaks a different dialect of the language. A man like with me, with a southern drawl, would have a hard time in Boston and visa versa.
 
Time out

By "Official Language" aren't we talking about government documents and ballots and crap like that? And then, not suing buinesses that don't provide non-english speaking services?

See this is why I hate coming into threads that have gone passed three pages. It's a whole nother world from the posted topic.
 
stelz said:
You apparently think England and Scotland are somewhere in the US. Have you tried google?
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What part of they weren't trying to live in another country don't you understand? My ancestors on the other hand were doing just that.
 
stelz said:
Verthaine just said what I was thinking, only he said it better.

And there's a xenophobic undercurrent to a lot of this "official language" talk. I could EASILY see it turned into "forced language".

Something else: A lot of the people who are clamoring to make English the "official" language ONLY speak English. I've noticed that a lot of people in Europe speak two or more languages, you're not considered educated there if you don't. So maybe instead of griping that everybody needs to speak English, all that energy would be better spent trying to learn a second language.
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Well, I am the OP and support official English in the U.S., yet I speak five languages -- so, while such comments may or may not be true, they aren't relevant.

As for people in Europe, city-dwellers and the educated generally speak more than one language, many in the country-side don't. When travelling in France, I didn't see any evidence that the majority of people in the French country-side could speak English (though I speak French, so that is not an issue for me). Same in Austria and Southern Germany (except that I don't speak German) Not as many Europeans are truly as bilingual as many would have you believe, though rate of bilinguilism is far higher there than in the U.S.

You know, many European countries have official languages, don't you? France, Germany, Denmark, Finland (official bilingual), Sweden, Norway (with some regional languages), among many others...
 
Verthaine said:
While no one here is seems to be denying that atrocities were committed in the past, you saying that they are irrelevant to the present does not necessarily make it so.
Those who forget about the past are doomed to repeat it.So are those who choose to ignore it.

And again I ask,is there a guarantee that the atrocities committed in the past cannot and will not be committed in the future.
I say while times my change, people are people, and people do will do really nasty things to one another if allowed to.

And what's the uses of making English "official" if it is not "enforceable"' or the ultimately "mandatory"?
Click to expand...

There are many countries with official languages yet other languages are in use. Where I live, Mandarin is the official language, but many speak Taiwanese. I use English in addition to Mandarin and I converse with others regularly in Japanese and Indonesian. The fact that those are not official languages here does not prevent their use. In fact, in all three of those languages, I have a pretty thriving business in interpretation and translation. No one needs to fear that official English will mean it is illegal to speak Spanish, Mandarin, French or other languages in the U.S. That is simply preposterous...
 
stelz said:
nHumanities: Half of Europeans Bilingual

Half of Europe's Citizens Know 2 Languages

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Half of European citizens speak a second language, according to a European Union survey released Friday.
The poll, conducted in June across Europe, found that tiny Luxembourg had the highest percentage of bilingual citizens, with 99 percent of those questioned saying they could master a conversation in a second language.

Hungary had the lowest number with 29 percent of its citizens able to speak another language. Britain was second last with 30 percent.

The survey also found that almost eight out of 10 students—ages 15- 24—can have a normal conversation in at least one foreign language.

In the United States, by contrast, 9 percent of Americans speak both their native language and another language fluently, according to a U.S. Senate resolution designating 2005 the "Year of Foreign Language Study."
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So a very small country, where the citizenry will undoubtedly be in constant contact with foreigners, has a high concentration of bilingual citizens. This puts the high level of bilingual speakers into perspective for larger Europe, in general, where one can visit a foreign state by taking a short train ride. The same circumstances don't exist in the states, so it makes sense that not as many people adopt a second language. Though on border towns, and major cities, it's often more common.

Another point this raises is that a country can still have an official language, and a large number of individuals who are bilingual; so the circumstances are not mutually exclusive. France would probably be a perfect example, where they are almost xenophobic of outside cultures, even going so far in legislating the language people can advertise in
 
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