# Is an Official English Language Academy/Board a Good Idea? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 25, 2017, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808 "2017-10-25T13:15:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/61 "2017-10-29T14:11:50Z")
I’m no constitutional expert, but I do not believe that Congress has the authority to forbid the states from adopting languages as “official” or even “unofficial”. Perhaps the poster should remember that federalism (limited federal authority) is a key, if not the key, aspect of the US Constitution. Pretty much everything be objected to is under the authority of the states, not the feds. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/62 "2017-10-29T14:15:09Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > “Official language” simply means there is a law that any legal document in the official language must be accepted as binding, and that the right to conduct official business in any other language is not guaranteed (but may be accepted by all parties as binding), > > In other words, if English is the official language, the government has the right to communicate to you or with you in English and consider you to have been informed. That may be how official languages work in some countries, but that’s not how official languages work in Canada Official languages aren’t about the rights of government. They’re about the rights of people. People have the right to communicate with the federal givernement in the language of their choice, and to use the language of their choice if they’re in court, etc. The official language law then puts the onus on the government to accommodate the choice of the individual. Nor does it mean that a person who doesn’t understand a communication from the government in one of the official languages is hooped. If someone doesn’t understand English or French and gets a document from the government in one of those languages, they’re not hooped. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/63 "2017-10-29T14:35:21Z")
Hit Reply by accident. Meant to close by saying that if someone gets a document from the gouvernement they don’t understand, they can raise that issue if they need more time to reply, get a translation, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/64 "2017-10-29T14:40:35Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That’s a vastly larger, and even more backwards-thinking idea than the simple declaration of an “official language”. Which is a pretty ignorant and backwards thing in itself. I think francophones in Canada, anglophones in Québec, and First Nations people in the Territoires would disagree with you. Having official languages protects their rights to deal with their governments in their own languages. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/65 "2017-10-29T14:40:41Z")
True, but applying the Canadian approach to **Clothahump** ’s benighted proposal would be just what the bigots ordered:You have the right to communicate to the government in English and only in English. If you can’t communicate in English you have no rights at all. You’ll simply be ignored until you leave or are deported for violating something you didn’t know about. Because you were only told about it in English.That’s what “official language” means in this sorry excuse for a modern country. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/66 "2017-10-29T14:43:12Z")
No, that’s not right. That’s not the Canadian approach. If you don’t speak either language, you still have legal rights to interpreters in any language, to ensure you understand the proceedings against you. That right to an interpreter in any language, even if it’s not an official language, is also a constitutional right. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/67 "2017-10-29T16:47:51Z")
**Northern Piper** , that is the way sensible official-language laws should work, and the de-facto state of affairs in most of the USA right now. BUT, the American “English Only” faction does tend to come across most often as in **Clothahump** ’s post, advocating that any language accommodation be eliminated in the public sector. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/68 "2017-10-29T17:21:10Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > **Northern Piper** , that is the way sensible official-language laws should work, and the de-facto state of affairs in most of the USA right now. BUT, the American “English Only” faction does tend to come across most often as in **Clothahump** ’s post, advocating that any language accommodation be eliminated in the public sector. I don’t know if that’s actually true. One of the largest groups, [“US English”](https://www.usenglish.org) clearly states on their website: > [@](#): > > Official English legislation contains common-sense exceptions permitting the use of languages other than English for such things as public health and safety services, judicial proceedings, foreign language instruction and the promotion of tourism. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2017, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/69 "2017-10-30T00:26:48Z")
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires fluent English of anyone applying for a pilot license. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2017, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/70 "2017-10-30T01:48:30Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires fluent English of anyone applying for a pilot license. I don’t see why. What could possibly go wrong if we required all air traffic controller groups to have fluent speakers of at least 25 languages in order to communicate with pilots unable to do so in English? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2017, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/71 "2017-10-30T04:23:51Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires fluent English of anyone applying for a pilot license. That’s actually an international convention - when pilots of diverse backgrounds need a common language that language is English. More specifically, since 1951 it’s been [aviation English.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_English) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/72 "2017-10-30T13:01:56Z")
I’m betting **John Mace** ’s comment was tongue in cheek. “Aviation English” works OK, not great. In the rest of the world local ATC and local pilots are free to speak the local lingo. And generally do. As to English, some folks speak it throughly, and others are clearly repeating memorized phrases and plugging the variables into the blanks with little actual understanding of which noises represent which ideas. All of this works as long as everyone and everything sticks to the script. When a non-standard situation arises the opportunity for failure to communicate skyrockets from “unlikely by design” to “all but certain by lazy implementation.” Over the next couple of decades the industry will be expanding the use of datalinked text messages in lieu of verbal commands for most routine ATC ops. Right now it’s commonplace over most of the high seas and will soon be coming to continental Europe, China, and the US. Starting with high altitude enroute operations then spreading down into the departure and arrival ops at major hub airports. The good news is this will remove some problems with English proficiency, with conventional radio congestion, and with human accents. Both pilots and controllers can send and receive the canned messages in their native language. The bad news is everybody involved will get less proficient at speaking English. Ever-increasing automation has been the story of my career’s era in aviation. As with so much else in this evolution, this incremental introduction of computers into the mix will reduce small errors while rendering the overall system more prone to brittle failure modes, where small problems suddenly flare up to uncorrectably big problems. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808.md?page=3)