English – The Official Language of the USA

Discussion in 'United States' started by longknife, Mar 10, 2015.

  1. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    Please try explaining to me how our government printing documents in the muliptle langauges that are commonly used is a bad thing.

    Spanish, according to what I've read, is the primary language for about 35 million Americans so it's not like we're typically creating documents in some weird South Pacific dialect. We're talking about the second most used language in America that is the primary language of tens of millions of Americans.

    All of these documents are always published in English but in a community with a substanial population speaking Spanish it makes sense to also publish them in Spanish. Those Spanish speaking Americans are also taxpayers and they have the same right to read the government documents as those that speak English.

    Now if you want to object to the publication in "dead languages" like Latin then I'd agree but to not publish official government documents in Spanish when it adversely effects as many as 35 million Americans that makes no sense whatsoever.
     
  2. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Even if that were true, it still has nothing to do with racism.
     
  3. supaskip

    supaskip Well-Known Member

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    An excellent example; couldn't have used a better one myself. Overwhelmingly voted into law, has had a long time to bed in to consider effects. Benefits were seen - that being that instead of translations in classroom, children were educated and learned English. Spanish kids today, in California, are bilingual. Absolute bonus. My foreign language skills are shaky, but I would love to be bilingual!

    Why not provide education instead? This is not an overnight situation. Translators or translated materials will not be burned overnight and leaving citizens to fend for themselves. Translators will ALWAYS be available. After all, we have foreign visitors all the time, and they may need police assistance.

    Who said it was superior? That's quite a complex you have. Common is nowhere near superior.

    Language doesn't violate the constitution. I'm not Christian, I couldn't care if it were the "official religion". It wouldn't hinder my practice of any other religion (or not).

    Which is practised by voting in governors that will act on our behalf. I don't work for government, and I see no problem in bringing in this as the official language. I see no racism coming from this, I see no discrimination coming from this, I see no immediate "changes" coming from this, and certainly none that would cause problems. I still have not heard a convincing argument against this.
     
  4. Albert Di Salvo

    Albert Di Salvo New Member

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    Countries that aren't united by language aren't aren't truly united. That's why Mandarin is being imposed as the sole language of China.
     
  5. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    There is much to be said about "immersion training" when it comes to learning of a language but it is best accomplished in conjunction with bilingual education program and not absent the bilingual education. A non-English speaking student learns nothing from the teacher until they acquire the language skills and that requires bilinqual education.

    I would argue the limitation to "English Only" violates the 9th and 14th Amendments.

    http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment9.html

    http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment14.html

    I would argue that an American has the unenumerated (inalienable) right to speak their native language (9th Amendment) and it is the responsibility of government to accomodate the person (as opposed to the person accommodating the government) to ensure equal protection under the law (14th Amendment).
     
  6. phil white

    phil white Member Past Donor

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    America wasn't meant to be diverse. It was a result of a part of the population being greedy and importing slaves and later cheap Asian labor. Meanwhile the average citizen was unable to oppose all the non-white immigration against the money power of the robber barons.
    Now greedy Americans have been importing cheap third world labor since 1965.
    Benjamin Franklin was worried that too many German speakers were immigrating to the U.S.
    John Jay in Federalist #2, on urging the ratification of the constitution declared it was workable largely because we were "descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, very similar in our customs and manners."
    The naturalization act of 1790 I'm told specified that only free white persons could become citizens. (That in turn would have guaranteed we would stay a heavily Christian nation as whites (Europeans) were solidly Christian.)
    Now we are going to have to pay the price for not rioting in the streets in 1965. :salute:
     
  7. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    German is way too complex, and has sounds that are hard for anybody but native Germans to duplicate. English's problem is that it's an amalgamation of old German and old French, with add-ons from almost every other language. That is also what is so great about it.
     
  8. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Businesses SHOULD cater in foreign languages.

    The interesting thing is that all of your arguments are over 200 years old. Ben Franklin wrote a lot of that about the Pennsylvania Germans in the 1750s. he complained that there were as many newspapers in German in Pennsylvania as there were in English, he complained about signs in German in Pennsylvania. He thought Germans would never learn English. that's the history of immigrants in this country. Americans never believe that the largest current group of immigrants will ever learn English. They used to say that about Italians and Poles........ It just takes time, and they will adapt.
     
  9. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    German is actually nicely systematic and predictable, including in its orthography and spelling/pronunciation rules. Also, I don't know what other people's problem is, but I haven't found it hard to speak, even if I still do so with an accent. Accents aren't a big deal anyway.
     
  10. dreamin'gal

    dreamin'gal New Member

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    the grammar is way more complicated than English...
     
  11. supaskip

    supaskip Well-Known Member

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    Exactly, which is why this isn't an overnight change; in fact very little will change at all. If someone needs assistance, they will get it.

    Your use of the word "only" is not correct. "Official" doesn't mean "only".

    I can see nothing that would impinge 9th/14th. People will not be denied anything. People have the right to speak their own language (if born in an American State). If that is Spanish, then fine. If someone needs assistance, they will get it. If you are born when the official language being English is in place, then your own language could be argued to be English. I highly doubt that THAT would be enforced; if you speak a different language from the official language, then why would you NOT get assistance?? Nothing would be allowed to go against the constitution. Nothing would be allowed that would discriminate.
     
  12. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    Based upon California, no they won't get it. Immersion learning also requires bilingual learning and in California the bilingual education was all but terminated from what I've read.

    In application it ultimately results in "English Only" because all other languages are disparaged under the "Official English Language" arguments.

    While your lack of understanding of the Constitution is not an argument I will answer one question you present.

    "why would you NOT get assistance??"

    Because the racists won't want to pay for the costs of providing the assistance.

    That's the actual argument "for" these laws. Providing bilingual education (assistance) and documents in Spanish (assistance) costs money and the racists don't want to spend any money on the damn "Mexicans" that speak Spanish (even if they're US citizens).
     
  13. supaskip

    supaskip Well-Known Member

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    That actually made me LOL. I need not reply to other points.
    I was ignoring other replies in this thread that were aimed at your opinion on this (and, it seems, most topics) but I guess I should have taken heed. I'm not sure if looking for racism in this counts as racism itself. Oh well.
     
  14. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Can you do the ue (u with umlaut sound) to the satisfaction of German speakers? How about can you decide when a verb split needs to happen? Do you know when a verb is separable/inseperable? What about the whole gender of nouns thing? Please tell me how "predictable" the masculine/feminine/neuter nouns are? My mother is a native German speaker, and when I was five I was a native German speaker. Unfortunately, we didn't keep it up. I took college German, and if I lived in Germany for a year or so, I probably could pick the language up. I can do the ue, but that is only because I learned it at a young age. I know almost nobody not raised by Germans that can do the sound to the satisfaction of most Germans (especially my cousin). My mother has no idea about the predictability of the gender or the separable verbs. She basically says "you just know it."

    I do grant that German spelling/pronunciation is very predictable (English of course, is not predictable due to our varied sources of vocabulary). I don't agree so much with German orthography being predictable.
     
  15. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    I don't know of any immigrants (from any country) who don't want their children speaking English. Most immigrants would love to learn to speak English themselves, but most don't have time due to working hard to survive.
     
  16. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Granted, noun gender is not immediately apparent and is something that needs to be memorised. That's one area where Russian, for example, beats German. You know by a word's ending what its gender will be with very few exceptions, and those exceptions tend to be loanwords. That's probably German's worst/hardest quality, though.

    The rest of that, sure, I think I have verb separation and basic pronunciation down well enough. I had the benefit of studying a semester in Germany and even having a course that emphasised teaching pronunciation. I think I can produce a pretty good ü, ö and ä. Of course, every language has its challenges for learners from other places.. Look at how the Japanese struggle with L and R :D The rule I know of for separable vs inseparable verbs is to rely on which syllable is stressed; if the prefix is stressed, then it's separable, otherwise no.
     
  17. Drago

    Drago Well-Known Member

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    High or low?
     
  18. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Hochdeutsch.
     
  19. Alucard

    Alucard New Member Past Donor

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    I will opine that English only would be cohesive for the United States.
     

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