Countries' official languages ???

Question

USA has 2 "official" national languages i.e. English & Spanish while Canada has English & French and Switzerland has German, Italian & French.

Why is it that USA has ONLY English & Spanish, while the early immigrants were from the French speaking, Swedish speaking & German speaking countries ??? Again the same could be said about Canada for having ONLY two languages given "official" status while early immigrants included speakers of other languages, as well.

What's the reason for Switzerland having these 3 languages ???

In Canada, does the person born in French speaking area "speak" English as their FIRST or SECOND language ???

Answer 1

The USA does NOT have two official languages. The USA has ZERO official languages. English is the most common language by far, so the government, etc. runs in English, but it is NOT an official language in the sense that some law made it so. It is the national language because most people speak it, but it is NOT the official language. And you are wrong about Switzerland. Switzerland has FOUR official languages--German, French, Italian, and Romantsch.

Answer 2

People in Switzerland really do speak these 3 languages all the time. Its not just a groovy thing to have on thier records so they can say "we speak more languages than you" Switzerland has a French part, a German part and an Italien part. If you go to different parts of Switzerland you will find all the signs are written in the language of that region and everybody is speaking the language of that region.
It may be that in America the early immigrants spoke all sorts of languages, but today, mostly English and Spanish are spoken.

Answer 3

Just to clarify:
The USA has only one official language: English.
Switzerland has four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh.

Canada was colonized by England and France. So most of the early European settlers were English speaking and French speaking - which became the official languages later on. After the colonies had established themselves, and some sort of governing body was put into place, then immigration from other nations and cultures increased. When Canada became a country, it was English and French that was chosen as official languages.

As for Switzerland, before it became a country in the 1300's there were many small kingdoms with different cultures in a small area. When the kingdoms chose to join together into a country of small cantons, they kept their traditions and their languages, including German, French, Italian and Romansh (which, by the way, only 1% of the total population speaks, but is one of the major languages of canton Graubunden). Switzerland's culture is influenced by it's neighbours, Germany, France and Italy, so it makes sense that these are languages that they also speak.

Answer 4

Actually USA has no federal official language. The de-facto language is English. Common accepted spoken languages in USA is English and Spanish that is only coz the other languages spoken are minority. Per 2000 census English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7%, other Indo-European 3.8%, Asian and Pacific island 2.7%, other 0.7%

Canada was formed as a bilingual dominion and because during formation of the Dominion of Canada there are broadly 2 categories of settlements English and french origin these 2 became their official language.

In Canada if you speak french then english is your second language and if you speak english then french is second language.

As for Switzerland it has actually 4 official languages: German, French, Italian, Romansh. It borders Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east, was historically formed as a confederation, and has been a federation since 1848. Since the time it was confederation there were 4 languages speaking residents and hence when the federation was formed all of these 4 languages were made as official languages.

Official Language is defined for most countries when their constitution goes into effect. It is a label to the nationalistic philosophies og that country. Like in India there are 14 accepted languages spoken but the official language is Hindi.

Most countries official language list can be explained based on their history or their settlement. Hope this helps answer what you were looking for.

Answer 5

Oh my... The USA's language politics are their own, and I'm suspicious of an agenda in your asking about them, so I'll let that be.

However Canada's 'official bilingualism' essentially goes all the way back to the Plains of Abraham, when Canada was won in war by the British from the French. To appease the 'locals' it was agreed that their linguage could have official status. Nationwide bilingualism only goes back some thirty years. Canada has two additional official languages in the territory of Nunavut. Switzerland has a fourth official language, Romansch, and the four exist because the locals their spoke the four languages in question as Switzerland was slowly developing into a loose confederation of local cantons.

It's probably a majority of the world's countries that have official multilingualism, in fact. Countries that might seem very homogeneous still often have more than one official language. The idea of 'one country; one language' is the product of ethnic, and thus linguistic, nationalism. The countries you mention all define themselves as federations or confederations, not centralist or unitary states. So they don't feel a need to define themselves by their language.

Answer 6

Canada has English and French as official languages because part of it was officially OWNED by France until the late 1700s when the British won that part in a war. The British then owned all of Canada until 1867, and gradually allowed bits of it to join Canada. They were smart enough to realize that it was better to allow their French-speaking subjects to keep their native language and religion and be more-or-less content than to face constant rebellion.
Canada has about 30 milllion people, including about 7 million people who speak French as a first language. (Perhaps 1-2 million who speak languages other than English and French, the rest English) The French-speaking province, Quebec also has about 7 million people. However, about 1 million Quebecers have English as their first language and about 1 million other Canadians have French as their first language.
Canadian provinces may also have official languages; eight have English as their official provincial language, Quebec has French and New Brunswick has both. The territory of Nunavit has Inuktitut as its official language (possibly English as well).

Switzerland has three official languages because it has speakers of those three languages in distinct parts of the country. Switzerland has 26 cantons (like tiny states) and each of those has one or more official languages as well. Romansch is a "national" language, not an "official" language--which I think means children in the Romansch speaking area learn it in school but it's not used in the national parliament. It's on the money, but not on food labels, and it's only on train publications in that area.

Answer 7

Mmm

Official language generally refer to the resouces the government is willing to spend on providing services.
Many languages may be spoken and supported in a country that are not "official". i.e. There are many greek and italian speakers in both America and Canada.
In France many people speak Breton and Provencal but these are not "official languages". In Switzerlan there are other languages spoken i.e. Romansh. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland )
In Canada the language of the people not the place would determine which (if any of these) would be the first language.
There are many english and other first language speakers in the french areas (i.e. Quebec) in teh same way there are many french and other language speakers in other parts of Canada.

Answer 8

Check for Schools, in USA, citizens are speaking only American - I mean American and not English, because it's really far from the proper English language. Spanish, is it the 2nd USA official language?

If German, French, Italian early immigrants had built schools there, in which their origin languages were studied, you would find USA citizens are speaking several languages, not only american.

Answer 9

Switzerland's got 4 languages!! the fourth is not very well known, but it's called "romantsch" and is also a official language.
The reason that Switzerland has these four languages is that we couldn't decide on one language as it was founded, so every part of Switzerland has its own language. In my opinion it's one of the most important things in Switzerland, as it is the only country of the world which has so many official languages.

Answer 10

The very simple and logical reason for the US to be English only is that England had conquered North America just prior to the American Revolution, so everybody spoke English (except for Quebec). Everyone coming to America had no problem adapting to the new language, as they were ready for big changes in their life anyway. And after US independence, English was still the main unifying language of all the new immigrants.