I might have to trade in my liberal card, but I have no problem with an official language. I don’t want to be hauled into court some day and face a judge and prosecutor who conduct the trial in Spanish. Sure I could have a translator, but it isn’t the same. Nor do I want my children or grandchildren unable to get a job in Miami because they studied French or Japanese instead of Spanish.
We already have a huge problem with black unemployment, what happens when more and more areas require you to be bi-lingual to get by. How will they compete with the children of Spanish or Mandarin speaking immigrants in areas of the country where those languages are increasingly common?
How am I supposed to evaluate the translation of ballot initiatives written in languages other than English to see if they have been properly done without shaded meanings?
No one should be prevented from speaking another language, but it’s not too much to assume that every American citizen can learn enough English to get by. No matter how multi-lingual we become we can never cover all the languages that are spoken in the US. Does someone have more rights to a ballot in their native language if they live in an area where " 5 percent of the local population… speak the same native language and have limited proficiency in English" than someone who lives in one with 3% or 4%?
I hate the term, but this is just political correctness gone mad.
I’m not against speaking other languages. I like to travel, and when I do, I try and learn enough of the local language to get by. In the US when I’m in a restaurant and the server is clearly not a native English speaker I order in their language if I can. I can get through menus in 4 or 5 languages with some effort.
But when I’m at the bank, or post office, or school I expect to be able to conduct business in intelligible English.
It’s a question as to whether we decide to be a multi-lingual society where people can get by without having to learn English. If your driving test, and ballot, and instruction on mass transit, and road signs are all in Spanish and you can also do all of your private business like banking and shopping in Spanish, what is the incentive to learn English?
There are already jobs in many of the areas of the country where being multi-lingual is either required or is a big advantage to being hired. My hometown has become about 20% Chinese and is rapidly becoming more so. The post office has hired lots of people whose native language is Mandarin or Cantonese. Should an Irish American or African American person be at a disadvantage in landing a job because they only speak English?
We can try and accommodate different languages, but we will never be able to support all the native languages of our citizens and residents. Or, we can just try and make it so that everyone is able to speak a common language.
It’s insulting that we think native Spanish speakers are too dumb to learn the signs on doors that say “Open”, “Closed”, “Pull”, and “Push”. I learned the Spanish words for those the first week I was in Mexico - and my Spanish sucks.
Yes, it does, unless you want to make the faulty analogy to a Spanish speaking person who is tried in English. The difference of course being that the United States, for now, conducts it’s affairs in English. I’d like that to continue, thank you very much.
You said it would be wrong for the government to make you go to court and force you to use a different language. And your proposed solution to this is the government should pass laws that would make people have to go to court and force them to use a different language.
If there’s anything faulty with my analogy, it’s that it so exactly describes what you said that it doesn’t qualify as an analogy.
Nobody is proposing the government stop using English. The issue here is whether the government should treat all Americans the same way you say you should be treated.
He wants his trial to be in English. Should someone who is here on business and accused of a crime be able to demand that all of the court proceedings, including witness testimony, be in Norwegian because that is the only language he knows?
First of all, the Constitution does not just apply to Americans.
Putting that aside, the government can not treat all people alike. We do not have the ability for street signs to be in every language spoke on American soil. Nor can we translate the laws into every language, or have police, judges and prosecutors, who speak every language. Having interpreters in court is a good thing; but I speak English, and I don’t want to be in a position where I need a translator to understand a judge or police officer. English has a special place in the United States. I don’t want my representatives to debate in a language I don’t understand. It’s bad enough trying to decide what things like “the right to bear arms” means without trying to do it in two languages that may differ in shades of meaning.
This is the United States, we conduct official business in English, get over it. If I move to Norway, or Thailand, or Germany I’d realize that I’m going to have a hard time until I learn the language. If I refused to learn it, and insisted on speaking English, I’d be a jerk.
To be specific, I think people have a right to have a translator available to them when being questioned by police and when in court. If they can afford it, they should pay for it themselves. If not, one should be provided. Beyond that I don’t think there are any rights to conduct official business in anything other than English. I don’t like the idea of ballots in anything but English.
If people want to fund government agencies to have information printed in other languages that is fine. But I don’t want to see laws that require signs in languages other than English, or require people to be multi-lingual to get jobs in any position other than actually translating to and from English.
I don’t want to live in a country where in 20 years you might hear someone say “I don’t want to move to Phoenix because I don’t speak Spanish”, or “I don’t think I can get a job in Seattle because my Hindi isn’t up to snuff”.
Yes. I’ve conducted legal hearings and if the person didn’t speak English I had to find somebody to translate the proceedings into a language they did speak. Which, while it was inconvenient for me, I have to admit is a reasonable standard to uphold.
Besides, that wasn’t the point fumster was arguing. He was saying that because he didn’t want his hypothetical trail to be in a language he didn’t speak, he wanted everyone’s trial to be in English - even if the person on trial didn’t speak English. Somehow, fumster feels upholding his right requires denying other people the same right.
I think the legal system should be impartial. If fumster can insist on having his trial in a language he speaks, then everyone else should be given the same right.
So then it’d be OK with you to hold an entire trial in Spanish? How about if one party speaks English and the other Spanish? Do we flip a coin?
The Supreme Court has a majority of old Roman Catholics: is it OK if they conduct a trial in Latin? Would the other justices have to pay for translators? How about if they wrote the opinion in Latin? After all, there is no official language.
For practical purposes we do have an official language in the Unites States. It’s the language our laws are written in, and the language of the Constitution. A common language is one of the few things that unite us.
We really shouldn’t need to have this discussion. The only thing worse than someone seeing the need to push for a law making English the official language are the people opposing the idea that English actually does have a special status in the United States.
I’ve made my position clear. Clearer than you’ve made yours.
My position is that the trial should be translated into the languages used by all the main parties in the case. That will cover any fears you have about ever going to a trial where they don’t speak English.
You should be more concerned that the government might actually take up your cause. If the government did decide to have an official language, without concern for whether people on trial spoke it, then they could decide to make that official language English. Or they might decide to make it Spanish or Latin or Norwegian.
English is obviously the predominant language in the United States. And it’s almost certain to remain so despite the fears of xenophobes. But that doesn’t mean it should be given official status. Christianity is the predominant religion of the United States but that doesn’t mean it should be declared the official religion.
Americans should be free to speak whatever language they wish to. The government has no more business telling Americans they have to speak English then it does telling them they have to be Christian. Both principles are stated in the First Amendment.
You have not answered my questions. Would you allow a judge and prosecutor to conduct a trial in a language other than English as long as it was translated into languages spoken by all the main parties in the case? If all parties and the judge were Norwegian how would you expect the trial to be covered by the press?
Is it OK if future laws are written in languages other than English? How about Supreme Court rulings?
As you contend that speaking any language you want is a right, should the military be allowed to exclude people that do not speak English?
Can I continue to expect that I can speak with police officers and 9/11 operators in English? How about if I am in a part of the country where native English speakers are a small minority?
Can I still get an English ballot if there are less native English speakers in my district than what ever percent is chosen as the cutoff?
If I move to a new part of the country will my children be able to go to a school in which they are taught in English or will they just be put in remedial classes until they learn whatever language the teachers have chosen to speak?
Only that’s not how things work in the real world, in those countries with official languages. People are provided with translators and/or translated documents inasmuch as possible within budgetary and personnel constraints. If the US ever gets an official language, hopefully they won’t decide to copy Franco’s methodology but those used by the immense majority of countries.
All of your concerns are based on a faulty premise: that civil rights are finite. You’re trying to protect your rights by making sure you grab as many as possible, even if it means taking them from other people.
It doesn’t work that way. If you’re trying to protect your right to speak English by taking away other people’s right to speak Spanish or French or Chinese, you’re just making it more likely, not less likely, that some day your rights will be taken away as well. You give the power to take away other people’s rights and they may someday use that power against you.
Instead work on protecting the rights of all languages and you’ll find that the right to speak English becomes better protected as part of the package.
I think there’s a difference between ‘English Only’ and ‘Official Language’. I see the value of Official Language in specifying a single language that the law is written in. Even when translations are available, the final decision on a matter of law should be based on the interpretation in the Official Language. I see no value in English Only laws at all.
I don’t want to get into a whole debate about the situation in Quebec, because I realize that the situation there is complicated, but I do have to point out that this is what happened to my family there. In the late seventies the government there decided that the official language of the province is French, and immediately my family – who were mostly Canadian citizens who had been living in Montreal for decades – were second-class citizens.
I never heard any poster discuss outlawing the speaking of Spanish or French or denying a criminal accused an interpreter when he does not speak English. What I do think would be an outrage is if in the United States, I was forced to hear a trial in Spanish and be given an English interpreter.
One of the basic unifying aspects of a society is its common language, and should English be displaced to that extent, it would be no less than an absolute conquest by other nations.