Why English became the predominant language in the USA? Why not German?

Answer 1

this question proves it, the dumber your question gets the more people who will answer it! no offense dude!

Answer 2

Most of the originall settlers spoke English as a first or second language. This was probably due to the influence of the British empire at the time. Most of the larger German immigrations occurred later when English was already well established as a de facto standard in the US. Currrent, the US. has no official language, however some cities have passed ordinances the specify an official language for those jurisdictions.

Answer 3

There was little German settlement in the 1600's and 1700's. Certainly no colonies in North America.

A better question would have been, why not French or Spanish? Large tracts of the North American continent were colonized by French and Spanish speaking people.

It comes down to power! The English of the time were more powerful militarily than either the French or Spanish on the oceans, and politically on the continent. They also settled more people over a longer period of time than the French or Spanish.

Did you know that the Russians had good sized settlements in Northern California prior to the gold rush? While they really were not interested in colonizing the west coast of CA, they did put a lot of people on shore, had nice sized towns and farming settlements, to raise food for their Alaskan and Aleutian settlements. What if Catherine the Great would have sent large numbers of settlers to California, Oregon and Washington? Perhaps the folks west of the Rockies would be speaking Russian now!
Grinnnnnnn....

Answer 4

There is a story that after our revolution, the English were so hated in the US that there was a vote in the Constitutional Congress to make German the official national language, and that it failed by only one vote. But I have also heard that this story was only legendary.

There were many German settlers in the 13 original colonies, and whole areas of Pennsylvania where German was the major language.

The Germans had a very different style of farming from English-based settlers. They used land more economically and so needed less land than the English-based settlers (in fact the need for more and more land was the reason for our revolution, and for continuous expansion to the west, and this was only because land was used so wastefully. The richest men in the colonies at the time of the revolution were land speculators and George Washington himself was one of the richest land speculators on the continent.) The Germans also kept the land in the family and farmed it themselves rather than with slaves or hired hands.

Today Germans are our biggest ethnicity in the US. 30% of Americans are of German heritage!

Answer 5

Actually, a better question would be "What chance did German have?" At the time, German was still badly organized and in the time period that USA was colonized (1620ff) it was involved in the 30 Years War. What colonization it did, Germany did later mostly in Africa (along with Belgium and France) and Asia while Britain and Spain carved up the New World.

Answer 6

hi, english is the predominant language here in the USA because it was the english who came here first to get away from england. german language is not the predominant language here because we are not from germany. we are from all countries here in the USA but english is the predominant language so everyone who lives here should learn to speak english first. bb, nobrethequeen

Answer 7

Closest German ever got was a load of German farmers in Virginia in the 1800's wanted state law translated into German, this was overturned by a large margin.

Answer 8

Because this country was founded by British colonists. Their language is English. That is why the USA is predominantly English-speaking.

Answer 9

German is that of Germany. US was settled by English Colonists.

Answer 10

Because the English settled this country...

Answer 11

The reason is that if the Germans had got there first the indians wouldnt have understood them as they could already speak in english .I know this as I have seen it in the films about cowboys and indians