Banning The American Language

When immigrants come to America and learn English, “broken English” evolves and this affects their communication abilities with their children. Children need to be able to understand and to communicate because it is the basis of relationships and it is important to learning. Not all people speak English language in the same way. It is uncommon to find two people that speak English the same because there are so many different forms of the language. This is especially true of immigrants learning English after coming to the United States. Language has become my way of seeing life from a different perspective. It is important to have a greater understanding of language struggles, and not judge others by their “broken” English. People who do not

English as the official language of the United States could benefit the U.S. Government and America as a whole. America has long since been a multicultural nation and has been an English speaking nation since it was founded. The constitutional and federal documents are all in English, which furthers the American people, believing English should be our official language. The majority of states already have English as their official language, for English has always provided a much needed cohesion to our diverse citizens since it was founded.

I chose the article, Why the U.S. Needs an Official Language, by Mauro E. Mujica. America is heading down a costly path unless it chooses to act against the integration of multiple languages. This article outlines the need for just one language, English, and its importance worldwide as the “Language of business, higher education, diplomacy, aviation, the Internet, science, popular music, entertainment, and international travel” .

Although the founding fathers decided to leave the idea of establishing a national language out of the Constitution, there have been several movements to establish English as the national language since then. Even though none of these movements could garnish enough support to make this into a reality, they have been influential in that English is the official language in 31 states. In recent years, five additional states have considered legislation that would mandate English as well (Schwarz 2014). Since many individual states have sided on the issue, it poses the question of if the national government should follow the trend as well. A strong argument can be made that the United States should make English as the official language because it would promote unity and patriotism among Americans, be economically beneficial for the nation while rightfully placing the responsibility to learn English on the non-English speaking immigrants.

In “Why No Official Tongue?” by Shirley Brice Heath I found many surprising and agreeable ideas involving the debate on whether or not the United States should have a national language. I personally believe that it is unnecessary for the United States to have an officially declared national language because most immigrants have a need and natural inclination to learn English in order to achieve success in America. This article provides historical proof from the colonial era that multilingualism does not threaten the English language.

In the “Don’t Make English Official-Ban It Instead” originally published in the Washington Post, Dennis Baron analyzes the fact that making English the official language of the United States will not stop people from speaking other languages.The author proves his point through the proposal of banding English. In this short review, I will discuss not just what was written, but how the examples, and analysis help make the author’s point. I will conclude by telling what questions I had at the end, as a reader, and where or what I would research to answer those questions.

Across the United States the amount of people who speak english as a second language or do not speak it at all keeps growing. This means some people could have neighbors that they cannot even ask for a cup or sugar from. There are even sections of the U.S. where immigrants have their own communities and they mostly do not speak english with each other. It is crazy how in a country whose foundation is english has portions of the population where it’s not spoken at all. A foreigner goes to a foreign country and expects to meet people that know the native language. It should be the same for the United States. Although not having english as the official language make coming into the U.S. easier for immigrants, english should be the official language of the United States.

“We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.” --Theodore Roosevelt, 1907. Declaring one language the official language to be spoken by all citizens in the United States, it professes unity, and portrays to all other countries that the country cannot be divided, especially not the border between languages. America was founded on the idea of something special, unity. (It is called the United States for a reason.) By speaking the same language it creates an unified environment. Creating an end to discrimination to those who do not speak English. It creates a better future, a safer future for every citizen in the country, by uniting together as a

1. In paragraph 3, Fairman says that the history of offensive words shows that “words themselves are not the culprit.” What does he mean? Do you agree with his rationale?

I really enjoyed reading your post. I chose that the United States should have an official language, so it was nice to see reasons why someone feels that we should not. Over half of the countries around the world have a language that is considered their official language (“Official American,” 2005). You brought up a few good points to why it would not make sense to have an official language here in America. You pointed out that we already exist with so many spoken languages here, so it would not make sense if we changed it now. You also said that this is one of the reasons why America is considered the mixing pot.

Recently, the question of having an official language was revived due to public outrage after presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s controversial decision to speak Spanish on the campaign trail. This issue went dormant in the mid-1980s after a large push in Congress to establish English as the official language of the United States failed (King). However, with immigration coming to the forefront in the upcoming presidential election, it is now more relevant than ever. In light of the growing social and political unrest, specifically due to mounting racial tension throughout the country, the opposing opinions of the argument to create an official language need to be addressed in order to quell rising pressure between ethnic groups in the nation.

“The United States is a nation built by immigrants. Often called the Great Melting Pot, the U.S. is renowned for its ability to soak up people from countries all around the world and still remain distinctly American”. Immigrants should not need to know english to live in this country.There are over millions of immigrants that immigrated to america every year and about 85% of them do not know english.The reason why I know this is because sometimes the immigrants don't even know that they are coming to america they usually just want to get as far away as they can from the country that they came from. This is important because it is obvious that you will not know english if you came from a different country and especially if you are immigrating illegally, then you probably did not go to school.

From the time pilgrims landed in this remarkable nation at Plymouth Rock, immigrants have been culturally diverse and have spoken various languages throughout history. When pilgrims arrived in the New World, the people did not know how to communicate with the natives through intense study the natives soon learned the Pilgrim’s language, which was English. Currently the United States is conducted of different ethnic groups. These groups vary from Native Americans, Arabs, Latinos, Germans, and many more nationalities in today’s society. English as the official language of the United States could benefit the U.S government and America as a whole. Although, minor complications could interfere with English being the initial language of the United States.

I will be writing an essay about “If the United States should have English as the official language.” I am interested about this topic because surprisingly the U.S doesn’t have an official language. Many people believe that it is because almost everyone speaks it and every place requires it. When in fact it is not the official language and the U.S doesn’t even have one. I will be writing this paper as a debate of why we should and shouldn’t have an official language even though I will be more leaning to the side of having an official language.

But surely, when slang becomes the norm, grammatically incorrect sentences allowed and American spellings accepted, I feel like we’re taking that a step too far and we’re just encouraging the next stage of illiteracy... And all that time I spent learning all the rules of English in class is wasted. If those people who still don't know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ are not ritually humiliated, then what is the point in even puttingspacesbetweenwords? Surely that’ll be the next step in laziness, or we won’t have sentence markers (full-stops) any more because the current generation are too busy texting or “unliking” things and taking “selfies” to even pay attention to the beautiful nuances of the English Language.