English as the Offical Language, Just seeing what others think

[PW]

Should english be the offical language for the United States?

Any Thoughts...

[Bob Brown]

I am stuck on this one.

In a way I believe it should be since it is the common language not only in the US, but in world business and technology (the modern lingua franca).
If you really want to succeed in the US you need to know it, and the better you know it the more it helps you.


On the other hand, we have a lot of languages spoken here and there needs to be an allowance for that.

[Jonatan]

We only recently (like, 2 months ago) decided that Swedish should be the official language of Sweden. However, i suppose there are more common with languages other than english in the US than with other than Swedish in Sweden..

[PW]

Yesterday I spoke in spanish and it just came very natural.
Our cleaning crew was coming in they said como estes which means how are you.

I answered muy bien, which means very good. And I responded y Tu (E tu) that means and you.

I have not done that in a long time, Well the neighborhood that I am looking to buy in is about 50% hispanic, nice area. The schools teach in english and spanish. But being here in Oklahoma I think it is only going to help if you know spanish. My 2 year old son can count to 5 in spanish & to 10 in english. So it just makes you brighter nothing wrong with that.

Besides that; spanish is becoming more apart of my job. I am the only one in HR that knows a little espanol. Again I am not fluent, just working at it.

Our church is thinking about teaching spanish to the english speaking as a ministry. Then having english classes to minister to the spanish speaking. It would increase the membership a lot. There is not a lot of folks that will take the time to speak in there native tounge and then teach them ours.

This post has been edited by PW on Feb 22 2007, 02:03 PM

[bunced]

Teaching a foreign language as a ministry is a great idea for a church. Our church also teaches EFL to the large Portuguese community we have in our area, yet I can't help thinking it'd be good if some people learnt Portuguese too. Interesting

[PW]

Well the Portuguese language is very similar to Latin spanish. They have there differences but it is like the UK english & the USA english. We say elevator, you say lift. tomato - tomatoe thing.

We had a misionary come from a Portuguese speaking country, and I understood about 90% of what he was saying. I think with a little basic class on Portuguese it would be okay

[Bob Brown]

I have learned basic German and a bit more of Spanish, but I have forgotten them both. I used to be pretty good at classical Hebrew, but I have trouble remembering how to pronounce many of the words let alone form them into sentences.

I'm just not in environments where I need other languages enough for my brain to retain them. I haven't spoken any amount of German in 13 years, and the last time I needed Spanish was in Mexico 9 years ago.

There are plenty of Spanish speakers around here, but in order to get anywhere you need to know English so everyone speaks it generally.

There are lots of other languages around. We have lots of Russian, Arabic, Slavic, and Rednecks around here.

I am fluent in Redneck and passable in Ebonics, but those don't generally count.

[bunced]

I'm fluent in English, advanced in French (read could survive in a total French society with no problems) and intermediate in Spanish and German. I want to do French and Arabic to University standard, so I'll eventually become near mother-tongue standard (God willing!)

I also speak Yorkshire and Norfolk dialects, both of which seem totally alien to any concepts of correct English grammar usage or pronunciation. . .

[Susan]

Just to add my 2c worth, in South Africa, we have 11 official languages one of which is sign language! How cool is that!

[mmonroe]

Sweet.

Paul and I are from the same area... yup, oklahoma. Legislature here wants to make English the official language so as to not have to translate public forms and paperwork into spanish. They argue its a way to save money because they don't have to print two different languages. If you'll remember, oklahoma was the front runner for most of the new immigration laws being passed in most states.

I for one am for it. Only because, if I expect to go live in another country, I can't expect their government to bend of backwards and make sure every form of literature they provide is readable by me, the person in their country who doesn't speak their language.

I believe if you want to live in this country, don't be a burden on this country, learn english. Now, that may make me sound like a racist but i'm not. Imagine how much in spent tax dollars it would cost to post every street sign in two languages for example. I know Canada does this for French/English in some territories. If english IS the official language, then there is no argument for wanting everything in two different languages.

This also make it an incentive to learn english. Once you know the language, a great hurdle when trying to learn english, what would stop you from continuing in higher education?

[Mindy]

I didn't realize that English wasn't the "official" language of the US. Seems kinda silly that it wouldn't be the official language since it is the one most spoken. Yes, we have a variety of languages spoken, but it just seems fitting that english would be the official language.

I used to work with a girl who was completely fluent in Spanish, but you wouldn't know it just by looking at her. Whenever a customer would come in that spoke Spanish and couldn't speak English very well, we would go in the back and ask our co-worker to work with that customer in Spanish. Almost every time she would refuse because she felt that if they were living in the US that they should try to learn English. Sometimes she would spent a considerable amount of time with a customer speaking only English and they never knew she was fluent in Spanish.

I don't have any strong opinions on the subject because I feel some compassion for these folks, but I guess they have to learn sometime if they want to really be integrated into this country. At the same time, I know that if I was in a different country I would be so blessed to know that government papers and such were interpreted into my language. Hmmm...I'm gonna have to give this one some more thought :-)

[mmonroe]

I too sat and thought about it for awhile.