In case there’s any confusion, I edited my post after GIGO quoted me, and removed the line he’s quoted me as saying, which is why it doesn’t appear in anything I’ve posted in this thread.
Whoops, sorry about that Miller, your corrected post looked like a new post in the preview window.
I’m not on the ‘official language’ kick.* I thought the thread had evolved on to the bigger issues.
*although I do think it would encourage people to assimilate faster if there was less official accomodation of other languages.
You brought that up, so it had to be dealt with. And where you see a problem others see opportunity, my cousin had to go to the hospital for an emergency last month, and even though he could speak English, we all liked the idea of the private hospital in Mesa offering services and help in Spanish. The kind young lady in the outreach program was as American as you can get, and she knew Spanish. I don’t think the job she got at the hospital is a “problem”.
You bet though that if a law was passed, then she would have a problem.
The checker doesn’t speak English at all?
Sure they were. In German, for example:
That’s interesting & definitely refines my thinking on the issue. Thanks.
(same to **tomndebb **upstream a bit)
Bitte schön! 
Your last line doesn’t apply to anything I believe or anything I wrote. My idea was that no institution should be forced to be bilingual. In my view, of course any private enterprises could voluntarily be bilingual. Public institutions - I’m still on the fence there.
You might be confusing me with others in the thread who are probably more extreme.
If you forbid people from speaking any language but English, that is exactly what you are doing. And if you don’t forbid it, people will simply ignore your declaration that English is the official language.
A law that turns English into a club to beat immigrants with is NOT going to make America “cohesive, more united” in any way.
Fair enough, the problem was that I was getting the feeling you are ignoring that it is not only immigrants that would be affected, but Americans that are working in industries that do deal with people that speak other languages.
As for public institutions, well, people like my parents still have problems with English, so it will depend on the location the public institution is; after all, people like my parents are taxpayers. If the locals decide that more citizens should be involved, being bilingual then is not a burden, but an intelligent way to also help local businesses that do generate more taxes to benefit all, not only immigrants.
There is a big strawman here that an official language = it is illegal to speak anything else.
This absolutely does not need to be the case.
My wife was hired to one job (in banking no less) specifically for her ability in a “non official” language. It was her role to handle those customers who did not feel comfortable in English.
The other arguement against an official language seems to be “well we have been fine all this while with English, why not keep using it?” The problem that I personally have with this is that it CAN (not will or does, but can) be used as a means for exclusion.
What if one day the Oval Office just decided that they wanted to use XPALADOCIAN to issue their press releases, policy documents and proclamations? Or for anti discrimination laws - a business decided that you must speak French because the boss speaks French (i.e - not a job requirement), how do you stop this if you don’t have an official language?
Or for the situation that Napier posted in comment #7, without an official language, why should the school be under any responsibility to offer instruction in English - so long as they are offering instruction.
Nothing about having an official language means that you can’t offer documents, help, advice or instruction in any other language. There is also nothing about having an official language that in any way ameliorates your responsibility to help migrants “assimiliate”, or mionorities catch-up if their language abilities are not yet up to the “official language” standard.
It does if it’s going to have any effect.
It’s called voting, civil rights laws and capitalism. Such a President would be out on his ear the next election, and such a business would go out of business most places in America. And it’s likely illegal to do that already, and if it’s not that’s a job for laws forcing tolerance of other languages, not one forcing a particular one down people’s throats.
And why would such a law be better than your hypothetical President or CEO anyway ?
Since you want to bring up extreme scenarios, how about the one where making English the official language leads to language being regulated by a government bureaucracy, so that, say, Freedom Fries becomes the legally mandated name for French fries or that calling your friends “amigos” becomes illegal ? How about people losing their children because they speak a non-English language around their children ( something that has happened historically, and that these discussions make me think of ) ? How about places like San Francisco or San Diego being forced to change their name ?
My specific objection has been that no serious law has actually been proposed on which we can actually comment–with my corollary comment that it will either be so much fluff or that it will be harmful. (Possibly more clearly expressed in the numerous threads that preceded this one.)
Then the president would be removed under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment for being a loon.
On the other hand, if the president decided to do the same thing using French or German, while I suspect that Amendment 25 would still get him removed, even if he dodged that bullet he would, effectively, recuse humself from governing as there is no way that he would find sufficient personnel in all the cabinet positions or the Pentagon who would understand him to carry out his will.
Based on that scenario, we need a law to compel the president to eat every day, otherwise he might decide to go on a hunger strike someday and interrupt the execution of government activities.
Because the de facto language of the country is English and any school district that tried to stop teaching English would not be permitted to get away with it.
I ask again: what would and “official English” law actually say? Would it be fluff or oppressive? No one has ever proposed such a law that would not be one or the other.
I love it when someone who I know knows better uses such a weak, cheap, fallacious debating tactic. I suppose that if Charles manson agrees with you that invalidates your point. :rolleyes:
Nope. You are merely making assumptions. How is the environment hostile. Sheeze, to disagree is one thing, but to argue from such ridiculous extremes reveals your sandy footing. If I moved to France, I would expect to have to learn French. If I had to speed that up if I wanted to participate in the governance of my town or the country itself, I would expect to have to step up my education. I would hardly feel the environment was hostile.
If I recall, isn’t there a board policy that posts have to be in English? I remember either (I think) Unregistered Bull or CB Escapee being reprimanded for posting in Spanish. So, if you believe that having a rule for a common language helps communication on the SD, why wouldn’t it help with congress. If not for now, as a remedy to a problem, but in the future, in order to prevent one. One whose roots will go back to this:
“Artificial barriers”? “Imaginary rules of language”? Huh? Care to translate from tomndebbish?
I think you overestimate your Mod powers. Your decreeing it pointless—even repeatedly—does not make it so.
I see know way why congress rules could not specify that all communication on the floors of the Senate and the House are to be offered in English and English only. The rest of you post seems to be a really long way to say, “well we could never do that because it wold be really hard”.
:rolleyes:
The speech was made in english also.
What the hell are you talking about? Who has proposed forbidding people to speak any language but English. The only limits on language that I’ve proposed have to do with the government
What’s the club? Who is beating anyone? A simple law regarding governement documents. Try portraying the position fairly for a change.
No it doesn’t. New Zealand’s official languages are English and Maori, my wife and her friends regularly spoke Chinese wherever they went, rented Cantonese language videos and generally had a great time. Even immigration documents were translated to Chinese for convenience. In no way does this is our official langauage = you are not allowed to speak anything else.
Citing a different example, in Singapore (on of) the official langauages is Mandarin, this doesn’t stop us being able to view Cantonese language shows on cable.
What did happen though was when the “Speak Mandarin” campaign was instituted in Singapore A SEPARATE LAW was passed making it illegal to screen television in dialects. This has now been acknoweldged as a mistake by the perpetrator of a law.
This would be the same way that G.W Idjit was kicked out on his ear for lying about weapons of mass destruction?
Because (and call me an idealist) laws are only enacted after rational debate, research and feedback. They are matters of public record that you can plan around, or agitate for change. Laws have institutions like the court system to back them up if they are incoreectly applied or broken. A person acting on their own initiative has none of these sort of safeguards or remedies against abuse.
Why does that have to be the case? I have an Irish name. In New Zealand I lived in a settlement with a French name. My daughter is exposed to a “non-official” language at home. All without any problems.
And I would love to see anybody just try to regulate the development of English. It would make for better drama than daytime soap.
Approaching the issue from another angle and please go with the hypothetical…
A new state is created. 95% of the residents in this state are fluent in only Balutian.
They have a representative elected to congress. With a “official langauge” law, it is a simple matter to either require that this person be provided with a translator or has to be fluent in English in order to be eligible for election. Without an official language law it is only at the discretion of congress what happens.
You may argue that “has to be fluent in English to be eligible” is not materially different from having to speak english to participate in debates. To me the difference is in the fact that if it is law, it is known ahead of time, and it can be judged on its merits.
If any action simply relies on the mood of the committee at the time it doesn’t have the same level of surety and fairness. (even if the outcome is the same)
That was not clear at all, can you please reply again in English? 
