Should English be the official language of U.S.?
This is a rather sensitive topic for me. Should English be the official language of U.S.? Mind you, I have nothing against English as a language. I think it’s a wonderfully simple language that is easy to learn—and yet intricate and subtle the more you get to know it. I use it as my primary language—when I speak to friends, coworkers, and to myself (aloud or in my head)—in preference to the language I was born speaking. The few exceptions I make are because the people I speak to either don’t speak English very well (my parents) or I got used to speaking to them … not in English (my sister, my pastor in So. Cal, etc.).
But should this wonderful language be the official language of the United States of America? Or more importantly, should U.S. have an official language in the first place? As a strict constructionist and a minimalist of a sort, I say no. The Constitution gives Congress or the federal bureaucracy no such power—you may be able to argue under the general welfare and interstate commerce clause, just like all other encroachment by and expansion of government powers, but you have to remember Madison’s words: promoting general welfare is not an unlimited power—whether something is appropriate or not depends on how much power is involved in that promotion, and I say locking down our language by government is too much power.
Perhaps the states have the power to designate English as their official state language, but that’s where it stops, in our system of federalism.
But, as you may be aware, some conservatives disagree, and I can see their point of view.
Early new Americans learned English out of pride for their new country — and out of necessity to engage in the capitalistic system. It made sense then and it makes sense now, yet the movement to prevent the recent wave of immigrants, mostly from Latin America, from becoming integrated and successful citizens by not teaching them English as the foundation for their success is alive and well-funded.
For immigrants like myself, learning and using English as the primary language is a matter of patriotism. I don’t know what it means to anyone else, but to myself, it is but a small way for me to prove this portion of my naturalization oath: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.”
But some of their other points I don’t agree with:
Other Western nations protect their languages. The French Academy, attuned to France’s high self-regard, vehemently monitors usage in classrooms and in the media. In Russia, the Orthographic Commission of the Department of Language and Literature meets regularly to protect proper usage of Russian. English, however, is not protected by its cultural elite.
As much as I would like the “cultural elite” of this country to love this country (and its language) more, I would also like them to express their love through private acts, not with government support (as is done in France, Russia, and in fact, every developed nation I know that keeps a “standard” official language). It’s been a matter of pride for me that in this country, the keeper of the language standard is not some government department (again, I don’t think Constitution gives the federal government such power), but rather, it’s private publishers like Merriam-Webster. It wouldn’t do to do away with this American phenomena in order to preserve American language and culture.
And finally, as someone who’s been part of an ESL program, I would like to refute
This explains why anti-American activists lobbied for federal monies to support English as a second language in our school systems — not the first language for Spanish-speaking immigrants — working behind the scenes in the labyrinth of the federal bureaucracy to alter the curriculum to their whim.
“English as a second language” is not the statement of goal of the program—it’s statement of the fact, with the goal of every teacher in that program being that the student will graduate from the program and join mainstream programs as quickly as possible (at least it was that way at the school I went to). In fact, because sometimes this doesn’t represent the fact (some people are learning English as a third or fourth language), they started calling it “English language development”. And as much as there are some aspects of these programs that are unhealthy, they serve a necessary role and stepping stone.
I have heard of bilingual programs where English instruction is so … deemphasized, but not having been in such a program, I can’t really say how those programs are.
Anyway. This has become a long and rambling post (I’m writing this on Sunday morning; I clearly didn’t prepare this and I am pressed for time—and this is a topic on which I could speak forever), but my main point comes down to this:
I don’t think English (or any other language) should be the “official language” of the U.S. if that involves any legal power or action. Symbolic gesture recognizing English as the most used language in the U.S. (call it “official language” if you want) are O.K. but that’s where it stops.