Why most Europe & Canada are Bilingual or Trilingual but the USA is Anglo-Monoloingual by force?

Question

or the Only-English policies in some local county and city governments. Not all, but in some.
Por suerte otros condados y ciudades reconocen las potencialidades de dominar dos o mas idiomas academicamente desde nivel elemental y medio superior hasta los grados de maestria y doctorado.

Answer 1

It's a complicated situation. You are partially right but there are some caveats and exceptions to some of what you say too.

Historically, Americans have tended to have the same attitudes towards foreign languages that the British have had - that to speak any language other than English is unpatriotic.

While Americans discouraged Irish immigrants from speaking Gaelic and have been bad at times about punishing Indians for the use of their native languages, including washing their mouths out with soap at mission schools, they have still been rather tolerant about the use of Spanish in Miami and the Puerto Rican communities of New York. They also havn't prevented the Amish from using German. So you have a somewhat checkered pattern of linguistic enlightenment and oppression here.

By and large, Europe is more bilingual or trilingual. However, France does not tolerate the use of Breton, Provençal or Alsatian German very well , and Spain has always been unfriendly to the use of Basque and Catalán , especially during the Franco years (1939 - 1975);

Many Italian and German speakers have immigrated to Latin America but they still have to learn Spanish or Portuguese afterwards. You don't see any of the Latin American countries rushing to make Italian and German co-official languages.

In Canada, it is mainly Quebec that is bilingual. However, there is an active movement right now in the western Canadian provinces to get French labling taken off of grocery and drugstore products.

The Russians have actually been some of the more enlightened people in the world regarding linguistic enlightenment, despite 75 years of Communism. They found out early, that the more you oppress a people for speaking their native language you only reenforce it. So they allowed non-Russian peoples to use their native languages and even helped them develop alphabets for them in some cases. Still, probably most of the non-Russian languages in the former Soviet Union will disappear over the next 200 years.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

English is the de-facto language here, but unless that bill passed without me knowing, we still have no official language.

We can accept other languages here, but it can be considered rude to speak another language in the presence of those who don't speak that language. If one of the people can't speak english, that's acceptable, but if both speak it well enough they should speak english.

I took German in school, and wish I learned the more useful Spanish Language. Excluding Chinese, Englsih is #1, and Spanish is #2 as far as what the world speaks. I guess since we speak the #1 common language here, others would speak it.

Answer 4

Most people in America never leave the state they live in, and everyone here speaks English. We're basically cut off from the rest of the world, while the rest of the world has to know multiple languages because they are so close to other countries.

Answer 5

Well good point you have there ... in the US we only have English ... But not to mentioned ... Lousiana and some areas around it have a myor influence in French.... not an official language but a mayor spoken area ... like Spanish all over the US, Philipino ...

We have many languages but the US doesn't want to aprove any of them as an oficial/partial language in a state...

Ex: Lousiana should have French as and oficial second language ... but they don't ....

Answer 6

I think because in other countries learning other languages is mandatory and in our schools it's an elective.
When my son was stationed in Germany his children went to on-base schools but they still had to learn German, in grade school even.
I personally think it's a good idea to broaden our minds and to be able to speak to people of different cultures. I took Spanish in Jr. High and I'm glad I did.

Answer 7

You're wrong. Most people here barely even understand one language.

Answer 8

not for long they are really pushing spanish to be our second language and possible our first