Isn’t it true that in some parts of the United States Spanish is de facto the most prevalent language? So if you are an American and a native English speaker, you are also required to be fluent in Spanish if you want to work in any almost any job (including working for the government)?
One would, however, have to persuade the Quebecois of that point. (I suspect, based on various votes over the last few decades, that most of them are aware of it.)
The province of Quebec, (Montreal and, to a lesser extent, Quebec city, much more than Toronto, ON), was the location of the English speaking financial heart of Canada for many years, while the Francophones in the same places were often prevented from participating. That was where the separatist movement got its start. There was a great cultural divide that arose in consequence. Most of the subsequent language issues have been ways to assert the dominated culture, demanding equality. The language issue is not nearly as strong in the Maritimes, (that are also bilingual), because the disparity in wealth was never quite as stark when viewed along the lines of language.
At this point, it has become a rancourous cultural feud that will either lead to separation or resolve itself, but reducing the motives to a difference in language ignores an enormous amount of history that exists outside the language issue.
Only up to a certain point. Without a set of shared assumptions a dialog can’t function. After that point diversity is actually corrosive to democracy. The reason that the United States has functioned as long as it it has is because of the melting pot effect of generations of immigrants willing to sacrifice their culture and embrace the American ethos, to stop being German or Chinese or Italians and become Americans.
That is why Professor Hayakawa thought that a common language is important for democracy. Language isn’t just a tool for communication, but also for thought. The vocabulary and semantics of a language actually controls how you think about certain topics and even what thoughts you can think. Some people can think outside the box that their language imposes on them, but they are rare and gifted individuals.
From the point of view of a mathematician, these ideas are very powerful. Mathematics is a history of inventing new languages like Matrix Algebra and Calculus that enable us to think in new and different ways.
I think you need to exclude New Mexico–officially bilingual–form this declaration.
Otherwise, you are mostly correct.
I think you are overlooking that English allowed an educated minority to impose their control over the vast majority that didn’t speak English. The elections hardly matter when these bureaucrats control the machinery of the government.
Latin is hardly suitable, since it has already been used as a tool to control non-Latin speaking subjects for millennia.
What is your objection to tearing a country apart if you end up with two or more countries that function better? Do you want to recreate the Soviet Union and or even Czechoslovakia?
I meant a million per year.
What is with you and your straw man arguments? I have made no comment as to whether any given country should or should not separate. I have simply noted that you have been completely wrong in your baseless assertion–against the evidence–that separate languages must necessarily result in a failure of democracy.
(And, of course, even if it were true, it has no bearing on the U.S. where no such bilingual situation actually exists.)
And the same situation continues, today, without wandering into the realm of imposing some sort of “official” language on the country. Despite the occasional small cluster of folks hoping for some sort of “Aztlán rising” movement, immigrants, today, continue the practices of their predecessors, with the second generation learning English so that they can compete in the marketplace. (And the Aztlán movement is not nearly as large as various nativists make it out to be. The Aztlán people only wish they had as much support as the nativists claim.)
Is it a good idea to support the efforts to encourage everyone to become proficient in English? Certainly. Is the best way to do so to impose some silly laws that prevent anyone who does not already speak English from being able to conduct business in this country? No.
The last time we had a huge wave of immigrants, we took a two-pronged approach of encouraging all immigrant children to study and learn English while providing their parents with enough resources in their own languages to be able to function in our society. An “official language” movement ignores the success of the past, (and the present), cutting off one of the two approaches to integrate immigrants into society. (This, of course, is liable to backfire under the Law of Unintended Consequences by alienating such immigrants and making them feel less likely to actually participate. THAT would be a divisive action.)
Actually, if you think it is so important to your argument, you should have done that research, yourself. In the interest of seeing what you think this means, I have gone out to the US Census and pulled up some numbers. (Currently from the 2000 census.)
From Table 1a on http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/AmSpks.html I have the folloing numbers:
TOTALS Native Foreign born
Population 5 years and over 262,375,152 231,666,088 30,709,064
Speak only English 215,423,557 210,211,516 5,212,041
Speak language other than English TOTAL 46,951,595 21,454,572 25,497,023
TOTAL speak English less than "very well" 21,320,407 5,647,591 15,672,816
Spanish TOTAL 28,101,052 14,760,788 13,340,264
Spanish speaking English less than "very well" 13,751,256 4,162,054 9,589,202
Other Indo-European Languages TOTAL 10,017,989 4,431,729 5,586,260
Other Indo-European speaking < "very well" 3,390,301 908,104 2,482,197
Asian and Pacific TOTAL 6,960,065 1,448,275 5,511,790
Asian and Pacific speaking < "very well" 3,590,024 389,829 3,200,195
All other languages TOTAL 1,872,489 813,780 1,058,709
All other speaking English < "very well" 588,826 187,604 401,222
The Census Bureau rates fluency into four categories, from “very well” down through a category of no understanding. These numbers place everyone who does not speak “very well” into the same category, so the numbers are not limited to non-speakers of English, but include people who are probably getting along OK in their day to day lives, but who could not write an essay in English.
So, in 2000, roughly 8% of the population spoke English “less than ‘very well’,” (i.e., somewhere between speaking English functionally, but not well, and not speaking English, at all), with about one fourth of that number native born persons.
So what?
Apparently a lot of Québécois don’t think so. If you look at how it is governed, then Quebec is a semi-independent province that has different laws than the other provinces.
It is also interesting to study the demographics of Canada. 6 million people out of 33 million don’t list English or French as their Mother tongue. They far outnumber percentagewise Spanish speakers in the United States, but they aren’t treated as an official language.
You can’t tell the difference between counties that claim to be democratic and the one’s that are actually are.
There are only very small areas that could be categorized as neighborhoods where Spanish would be the most prevalent language (Puerto Rico will be an exception). Very few jobs require Spanish fluency or any second language. It’s an advantage in many government and private sector jobs to be multi-lingual.
Nonsense.
It was the different cultures and laws that preserved the separate language, not the reverse. And you have provided no reason for us to accept a slilly claim that Canada is not a democracy. Do the Quebecois vote in parliamentary elections? Yes. Do they pay Canadian taxes? Yes. Do they participate in the Canadian military? Yes. Do they charge tariffs on products from other Canadian products? No.
A few discontented people does not indicate the lack of a democracy. In fact, the very fact that they continue to work to achieve ther goals through elections proves the opposite.
And you can’t tell the difference between someone that claims to be a True Scotsman and one that actually is.
Your wild assertions, lacking evidence, does not support your silliness.
I think Switzerland is, despite its three or four native languages.
Your table doesn’t answer the question since I asked for ‘native’ speakers. The total you have is actually less than the immigrants living in the United States, which implies that there are actually few native non-English speakers.
???
So, you are not only incapable of finding information for yourself, you appear to be unable to see the information when it is handed to you.
See the second column of data? The one that says “Native” as a column heading? That is the column of numbers for each category that applies to native born persons living in the U.S.
See the fourth number in that column? The one that has a row label that says ‘TOTAL speak English less than “very well”’? The one that has a figure of 5,647,591? That is the number of persons, native to the U.S. who speak English less than “very well.”
For 2000, that amounts to 2.15% of the population.
So what?
I already discussed Switzerland. It is a loose confederation where most government actually takes place at the monolingual canton level. They deal with the problem by having very little government at the federal level. They also have a system of universal conscription where men from different cantons are forced to serve together to help create a feeling of national unity in spite of the language problems.
I had a friend that spent over a year working in one of the French speaking cantons. He found German almost useless, even though all Swiss are supposed to study a second Swiss language in school. Of course I forgot all my French as soon as I graduated.