If Switzerland is Trilingual and Canada Bilingual; Why the USA is Monolingual?

Question

I feel sorry for those anglo-monolingual neocons, who are left behind for not Speaking Spanish.....( the second most spoken language in the USA)

Answer 1

First, Switzerland is Quadrilingual. Frence, German, Italian, and Romansch. But the country as a whole is not - each individual area has a dominant language. Many people can understand one or two of the others. Romansch is a one-way street - there are few native speakers left, and most of them have to speak one of the others (generally German) to get by, and very, very few learn Romansch as a second language.

Second, Canada is not bilingual. Quebec is. French is rare outside Quebec.

Third, not all the US is monolingual. French is a legal language in Louisiana. Spanish is in New Mexico. There may be others - (Hawaii, maybe?)

The reason the rest of the country is English-speaking is there was no need to learn another language because it could not be used. It's not like an Italian-speaking Swiss who travels 50 km and finds himself in a German-speaking area or an Anglophone who has to deal with a Quebecois at the gas station.

The real increase in Spanish in the US has come very recently as language evolution goes. You are already seeing responses - bilingual signs, for example.

But you do not have to feel sorry for those speaking only English. It is and will continue to be the dominant language of the US, for historical reasons if none other.

Answer 2

I only speak one language, and I'm not left behind at all. Not knowing Spanish has not hindered me in any way at all (and I live in Las Vegas, there's a lot of Spanish here). Also, if a person is going to respond by saying that Americans don't even have a handle on English, then maybe said person should work on his/her writing skills first. That pretty much takes away any meager validity that thier point may have had. (I think it was wiseman's comment)
Also: "Nearly 42 percent of the French population older than 15 years has a weight problem, an ObEpi-Roche survey showed on Tuesday. Almost a third is overweight and 12.4 percent is obese." That's from an article from Reuters. It's not just Americans.

Answer 3

Hmmm, you want us to learn spanish. If you talk to an average american he can barely speak or write proper english. Now you want to confuse them with two languages, huh? This is a nation which eats so much that more than half of them are obese. There analytic power is so low that 2 months ago Bush's approval rating was 29% and now it is 47%. Everyone is wondering what new has he done which have made 18% americans change their mind. Iraq is same, Afghanistan is same, economy is heading towards real estate Burst. People are still losing high wage productivity jobs and health benefits in exchange for low end health care and other service industry jobs. Japanese, Korean, now even China, you name any asian country their car sales are increasing and american auto industry is closing its plants every year. This is true in all aspects of economy. Look at any high tech industry weather it is health or IT,, Foreign borns are increasing in number while americans are still thinking when should they drop out of school. So do not worry about americans learning spanish. Think about if Hispanic should learn Chinese or Indian as thats where future jobs are going.

Answer 4

Last time I checked, the US did not have an official language, so I couldn't say that they are monolingual as a nation. Most people are, but the country isn't.

If more US citizens realized they don't have an official language, maybe they'd stop wondering why so many people in the US don't speak English. No one is forcing them to. If you want to force people in the US to speak English, make language laws, and make it official. Until then, everyone can speak whatever they like.

Answer 5

I guess cause I've never lived there.

Canada's official bilingualism does NOT mean that most Canadians are bilingual. If anything, it does the opposite, by (to a certain extent) allowing both language groups to meet their own needs. I daresay the only city the majority of whose population is bilingual is Montreal, and the most bilingual segment of all are francophones who live outside Quebec.

And plenty of Swiss-Germans don't speak French (pr at least avoid it whenever possible) amd Swiss-French don't speak German.

Answer 6

A monolingual country does not automatically implies that the population of this country is monolingual, it means that there is just one official language. Now, in terms of languages, I wouldn't call the US a monolingual country, given the vast majority of immigrants speaking English as well as their mother tongue.

Answer 7

I feel sorry for those that are so nieve that they assume americans are monoligual. This is a country of hundreds of languages. Just take a taxi in a major city and see for yourself.

Answer 8

I was born here (America) and I can muddle through about 6 different languages including ancient Aramaic...


What was your point again?

Answer 9

Absolutely no Amnesty for illegals

Answer 10

i feel sorry for them too! LOL. The American culture is about assimilation and not diversity.