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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
put a poll question up dude and I will vote yes
 
I see no real gain from doing so.
 
Yes, but with provisions to protect rights of non-English speakers

At first glance this sounds reasonable enough to me...but then I have to ask what's the point of declaring English the official language at all. I think that people should be allowed to vote, be educated, and be read their Miranda rights in their native languages, and I don't really see any other implications of what declaring English the official language would actually do. So I'm strongly leaning toward "no."
 
1) ballots should be in english only

2) miranda warnings-English only

3) businesses-should have a right to cater to their customer pool and if that means spanish or vietnamese or chinese or french so be it
 
I voted no. If you forced millions of immigrants to learn English, they would certainly learn it, but they would not have a high proficiency level. That takes years of wilful practice. In the mean time, having concise info available in their mother tongue keeps things less complicated and reduces errors.

Our ancestors who helped form this country came from all over. The people who built our cities were mainly immigrants. Maintaining flexibility is what allowed all that to happen.

An American who can't speak English is still an American.
 
The entire idea of making English a national language is rather short sighted and anal, when something approaching 25% of Americans are functionally illiterate. If the xenophobic ultra-right insists on social engineering I wish they'd actually focus on something worthy such as literacy.
 
I voted no. If you forced millions of immigrants to learn English, they would certainly learn it, but they would not have a high proficiency level. That takes years of wilful practice. In the mean time, having concise info available in their mother tongue keeps things less complicated and reduces errors.

Making it part of what you need to become a citizen doesn't mean they have to be highly proficient in it. Just that they can get the basics done.

Our ancestors who helped form this country came from all over. The people who built our cities were mainly immigrants. Maintaining flexibility is what allowed all that to happen.

And they tried to learn English. Many people today just don't. I have nothing wrong with flexibility but I do have a problem with telling people that live here to adjust to immigrants which seems to be the big solution these days. Well they just can't, so we should all learn Spanish. NO! I won't learn Spanish, so they don't have to learn English. I'm not the one trying to make it not being able to speak the language everyone else is speaking, they are. They should adjust, NOT me.

An American who can't speak English is still an American.

An American no one has any use for.

Oh and I don't actually support making English the national language. I'm just outraged by the "lets adjust to them" attitude these days.
 
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An American who can't speak English is still an American.

A person who can only speak or read one language is an American.
 
There are hundreds of languages spoken inside the USA, by millions of immigrants. As it now stands, ballots, public notices, etc., must be printed in every language that is the primary language of 10% or more of its residents. In some cities, that costs millions of dollars... not to mention the exhorbitant cost of bi-lingual education for all these different languages.

I believe that the USA should fully-fund learning centers throughout the country for both adult and child English courses. However, I also believe that English should be the official language of America. People who come here to be part of America cannot fully do so until they are able to fully communicate in English, just as any of us would be unable to be a part of any country we chose to live in without learning to speak the language there.
 
And they tried to learn English. Many people today just don't.

That's not true. Virtually all second-generation immigrants to the United States speak English fluently, and that's the way that it's always been. The first generation may or may not learn English (to varying degrees of proficiency) depending on the ability of the individual immigrant and the necessity of learning English. But the second generation is fully assimilated into American culture, including the English language.
 
Making it part of what you need to become a citizen doesn't mean they have to be highly proficient in it. Just that they can get the basics done.



And they tried to learn English. Many people today just don't. I have nothing wrong with flexibility but I do have a problem with telling people that live here to adjust to immigrants which seems to be the big solution these days. Well they just can't, so we should all learn Spanish. NO! I won't learn Spanish, so they don't have to learn English. I'm not the one trying to make it not being able to speak the language everyone else is speaking, they are. They should adjust, NOT me.



An American no one has any use for.

Oh and I don't actually support making English the national language. I'm just outraged by the "lets adjust to them" attitude these days.

Ahhh, that didn't take long. So it's about those bean eating Mexicans. Maybe people wouldn't hate them so much if they'd learn a little bit about their language and culture.

Are you demanding those damned injuns learned to speak "white" as well?
 
There are hundreds of languages spoken inside the USA, by millions of immigrants. As it now stands, ballots, public notices, etc., must be printed in every language that is the primary language of 10% or more of its residents. In some cities, that costs millions of dollars... not to mention the exhorbitant cost of bi-lingual education for all these different languages.

I believe that the USA should fully-fund learning centers throughout the country for both adult and child English courses. However, I also believe that English should be the official language of America. People who come here to be part of America cannot fully do so until they are able to fully communicate in English, just as any of us would be unable to be a part of any country we chose to live in without learning to speak the language there.

And more than 25% of the citizens of the United States are unable to read or write - "fully communicate in English".
 
And more than 25% of the citizens of the United States are unable to read or write - "fully communicate in English".

Maybe we need to have a department of education

oh wait we do-and it seems since we have had one things have got worse

my sister in law is full blooded Chinese. she was born in this country to two well educated people who fled communism. They didn't speak very good English but both retired as tenured professors in hard sciences from a prestigious university. My Sister can not speak any Chinese. Her parents wanted her to speak only the language of their adopted country. (She sends my nieces to stay with her parents in the summer for several weeks so they can learn Chinese!)
 
Just how many fracking languages are we supposed to accomodate? Shall we make all documents available in Estonian? Should road signs include Mandarin, Cantonese, Swahili and Zulu? How far do you take this?

Maintaining a sense of national identity across several thousand miles of landmass, and several thousand miles of ocean in some cases, is difficult enough without the citizenry lacking a common language in which to speak with each other. Nothing makes people see others as alien moreso than not being able to communicate with them.

Diversity is all well and good but a nation of forty-seven languages, where half the population can't even talk with the other half, is no nation. It is a shambling mess looking for a place to fall apart.
 
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Maybe we need to have a department of education

oh wait we do-and it seems since we have had one things have got worse

my sister in law is full blooded Chinese. she was born in this country to two well educated people who fled communism. They didn't speak very good English but both retired as tenured professors in hard sciences from a prestigious university. My Sister can not speak any Chinese. Her parents wanted her to speak only the language of their adopted country. (She sends my nieces to stay with her parents in the summer for several weeks so they can learn Chinese!)

Bi-lingual/bi-cultural, I support it.

Pragmatically speaking English remains the international language of money. If you want more money, the odds are vastly in favor of your getting it if you become literate in English. The rest of the argument is all "God, mom and apple pie" bullsquat. If a person repatriates and becomes a citizen and finds somehow that they can function in America and not have a clue what most people around them say then it is their choice.

Children growing up in America are going to learn to speak English. That's a given. What we are talking about then are adults. If they can make it without speaking English I don't care.
 
The vast majority of bi/multi-lingual countries around the world have serious problems with national identity. Groups are often divided by and identify themselves by ethno-linguistic lines. Yeah, people will cite Switzerland, but it is very much the exception, and for much of its own history, there were ethno-linguistic divisions within the country. OK, SUI is one success, but the others are very few and far between. In fact, many countries around the world with many languages spoken within the country promote a single national language, including Taiwan where I currently reside, but China, Indonesia and many others do the same thing. This is to promote a common identity and to make commuication by people throughout the country easier and more efficient.
 
Just how many fracking languages are we supposed to accomodate? Shall we make all documents available in Estonian? Should road signs include Mandarin, Cantonese, Swahili and Zulu? How far do you take this?

I grew up seeing some bilingual signs in NH, but they are not common. In Taiwan, most highway signs are bilingual, and that is managable. Any more than that, serious problems.

FTR - Modern Mandarin and Cantonese use the same written language.
 
Just how many fracking languages are we supposed to accomodate? Shall we make all documents available in Estonian? Should road signs include Mandarin, Cantonese, Swahili and Zulu? How far do you take this?

People should at least be able to exercise their rights (i.e. voting, fair trial) and be educated in their native language. I don't really care as much about government documents and road signs.

Goshin said:
Maintaining a sense of national identity across several thousand miles of landmass, and several thousand miles of ocean in some cases, is difficult enough without the citizenry lacking a common language in which to speak with each other. Nothing makes people see others as alien moreso than not being able to communicate with them.

Diversity is all well and good but a nation of forty-seven languages, where half the population can't even talk with the other half, is no nation. It is a shambling mess looking for a place to fall apart.

I don't disagree that we need most people to speak the same language for national cohesion. I just question why you think that that will happen if English doesn't become the official language. We've gotten along without an official language since the beginning of this nation, and yet we haven't reached a situation where "half the population can't even talk with the other half."
 
We're a nation of immigrants. Our current laws and practices reflect that. I see no reason to change them.
 
Though that is often part of a joke told in foreign language departments, most people around the world can only speak and communicate in a single language.

I don't know that. I'd like to see some statistics.
 
People should at least be able to exercise their rights (i.e. voting, fair trial) and be educated in their native language. I don't really care as much about government documents and road signs.



I don't disagree that we need most people to speak the same language for national cohesion. I just question why you think that that will happen if English doesn't become the official language. We've gotten along without an official language since the beginning of this nation, and yet we haven't reached a situation where "half the population can't even talk with the other half."

For most of our history English was the de-facto national language, and if you did not speak it "tough **** amigo". It is only in recent times that we have so many people who think we should bend over backward to accomodate people who come to this country and won't learn to speak the common fracking language!

Good lord, if I moved to France, the first thing I'd start doing is LEARN to speak FRENCH!!
 
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