Why is english not the set language?

Question

Why is english not the language of the United States? If we wanted Spanish to be the main language they would start teaching that in kindergarden. Dont we all basically speak english? I cant stand how the United States of America does not have a language.

France has french
Spain has spainish etc.... i think you can see my point

Answer 1

Amen Sister (Hermana)

Eye Sea what ur Saying!

Answer 2

Actually the situation where 1 country has 1 language is quite rare across the world. For example, it does not apply to the examples you gave, France and Spain.

The United states are quite large, be glad most people speak English!

Europe is a smaller area than the U.S. and still there is much more variety. For many people it's normal to be bilingual. English is a language spoken by many people, either as a first or a second language. This makes it easy for the natives to say you should just do away with other languages...This point of view does not show very much respect, especially if you consider Spanish is a world language too.

Answer 3

Philosophically speaking it is better to have it open ended. The U.S. is made up of imigrants from all parts of the world. Other nations also have imigrants but not to the extend that we do. When you leave some questions open ended it tells people Hey!!! we are inclusive, meaning for everybody not just one particular group. We are saying we welcome every body (as long as they follow legal procedures).

Setting up one language can lead to a lot of trouble. Some people use this to discriminate like the english only law they tried to imposed in florida. The law said that no one could speak any language other than english in public. So, much for freedom of speech. needless to say it was defeated. I meanwhat where they thinking? Where they going to fined everyone who doesn't speak english on the street? A similar thing could happen if they make english the official alnguage of the government. I mean it is obious to everybody that english is the official language. What people don't see is that it will be used to discriminate because then they do not have to rpovide services to certain groups of people. This defeats the purpose of the government. The government is there to erve its people. If you have someone who is a legal citizen of this country then say citizen has the right to request government asitance in what ever from that entails. Of the person does not speak english and the government refuses help then the government is being discriminatory. It just stands against everything this country stands for.

Answer 4

We've discuss this before. The answer is that most countries declare an official language in their constitutions. However, at the time the US constitution was written, there was no precedent for this (our constitution was very largely a reflection of the unwritten principles of the British government, which itself has no written constitution to this day). So it just did not occur to anyone to do this at the time. And this is the whole point, many things can be be generally understood without having to be put down in writing. Much as the UK still functions without a constitution, we in the US can function perfectly well with one that leaves out this one thing. In fact, some would argue that we are better off NOT specifying things in writing that are SO obvious. I for one believe this. But anyway most people who ask this question assume something that is completely untrue, that the failure to specify an official language in writing somewhere means we do not have one. It is like saying that England really has no queen and no parliament because there is no constitution specifying in writing that it does!! Think about it: how many things in life and in the world are so obvious that we do not need to specify them in writing!

Answer 5

I though you might find this interesting, France has one language because at the beginning of the 20th century there was a campaign to kill all the other languages. Only French was allowed at school, children were punished if they spoke their own language, only French was allowed in the administration. There were around 15 main languages and many more dialects. Some people spent their life without speaking a single word of French, or even knowing one word of French. Of course that was a time when people did not travel much or communicate much with people outside their area.
Those other languages survive now because there was a renewed interest in them in the 80's, and can even been taught at school.

Answer 6

You don't need to be scared of Spanish - it can co-exist with English. The pre-eminence of English is unassailable. You are fearful of cultural change, but change happens all the time and is often a good thing. It actually becomes dangerous only when you put a lid on it and pressure builds up unbearably.

There's no such thing as a "pure" culture or a "pure" language. If you knew the first thing about English you'd know that it is already a great big mixture of different languages: Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Arabic, Spanish, and Yiddish, among many others.

This gives it its piquancy and spice, as well as its vast vocabulary. Enjoy!!

Answer 7

The main reason that the US doesn't have an official language is because if we did, then we couldn't have government documents (like voting ballots, dmv instructions, etc) printed in any other language. By making English the official language, we would be preventing legal immigrants/citizens who have rights in this country from exercising all of those rights because they had a hard time reading English. This wouldn't be fair to them, nor would it really promote the spirit of what the US stands for.

Answer 8

The Founding Fathers just didn't declare an official language. And by the time anyone began to consider declaring one, they realized how involved it would have to be. Constitutional law and all that. There was a motion several years ago to make Esperanto the official language, but people never really took to it.

Frankly, I think we should have an official language. If we have an official bird (eagle), we should have a language. I won't comment on the whole Spanish thing. It would make me sound intolerant though I am not.

Answer 9

The U.S. is SUPPOSED to be English-speaking. It's just that people emmigrate to the US from other countries, and we have programs to teach them the language, whereas other countries require you to speak the language. In Mexico, the Drivers license exam is in Spanish. If you don't speak spanish and can't understand the exam, you can't get a drivers license. Period.

English has been designated by the UN as the International Language, and the hope is that one day everyone on Earth will be able to speak English to some degree. Not likely, considering we seem to be moving backwards.

Answer 10

The formal language in America is english
but maybee in 200 years they will call it American but at the moment it is englisn
There isn t ant country in America which has their own language - all the languages in America r basiclly Europian

Answer 11

actually, I don't see your point.

English is in no danger; it is not going anywhere. If we become a bilingual nation, so what? that will only make us stronger.

English is the language of the world; it will remain useful for as long as anyone can foresee. Spanish is the language of the Americas; as our economy relies more on our southern nations, it will become more and more useful.

what is not useful is resorting to knee-jerk nativist movements that do nothing but panic people and force conformity to an arbitrary, undemocratic, xenophobic ideal.