What Is English Language?

What is your position on 'English as official language' in the US?

• I think in a nutshell, conservatives will say 'English should be the official national language in the US', and liberals will say that 'there should be no official language in the US, and the language barriers should be remedied with translating systems.' What is your opinion about all this? Give me your best argument. For me, I was born in the US with English speaking parents, had to pass English proficiency in school, and then professors/ business people/ doctors, etc are all English speakers (let's be real). There are of course bilingual and trilingual people in these professions. But for the most part, English is the language you expect everyone to know, unless you are living in like Chinatown, or Little Italy, etc. Anyway, I would be truly truly ticked off if I had parents who were, say, Spanish speakers, and they taught me exclusively Spanish growing up, and didn't have me take English in school because they were trying to prove a point that 'the US is a free country and we don't have to learn English'. I would be really irrate, because from a practical standpoint, my opportunities are improved so drastically if I'm able to speak English in the US. And it's easier to learn a language when you are young, then say when you are 18 once you realize that virtually everyone speaks English in the US. I don't want to say people in the US should be forced to learn English, but I think it's only fair that kids at least understand the magnitude of English speakers in the US. What do you guys think? Be honest, don't say merely what you think members from your identified political party would say. Give me reasons. This topic reasons challenges me, and I appreciate well-thought-out opinions. Thanks! I understand what you are saying. But that's OTHER countries that are able to make 3-4 languages work. That is NOT the US. So I don't understand why you're trying to compare apples and oranges. Don't pretend like the issue of language barriers isn't a problem in the US. I dont think English is 'superior', but it is the most commonly spoken language in America. I mean, don't deny the simple statistics. What dfference does it make that it's not a Native language of the Americas? If this country was mostly French speakers, or Spanish speakers, or Chinese speakers; the language itself doesn't matter. What matters is the majority of those who speak it.

• Answer:

  1 I know enough of five languages to know that "translating systems" will never work 2 english is not a native language in the americas 3 noone should be confined to just one language 4 english is not a "superior" language. It isn't the easiest, it isn't the clearest, it doesn't have an easy spelling, it cannot express more thoughts and feelings than most other languages. It does have more synonyms, homonyms, homographs and homophones. 5 what guantanamo is saying is that there are countries that have 2-3-4- official languages without any problems about it. Netherlands (dutch.frisian), Finland(finnish/swedish), Switzerland (italian/french/romansch/swissgerman/sta… Luxemburg (french/german/letzebuergsch), several african and asian countries