RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (Full Version)

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MzMia -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/13/2007 9:14:43 PM)

I am feeling my late night humor now, but look at it this way.
Hispanics will probably be in the majority in a few years, they will
take over this country.
Eventually we will have an Hispanic President, even after El Presidente Bush.
He might make us learn Spanish.
Its a wonder El Presidente Bush has not done it.
hahahahahhaha



MellowSir -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/13/2007 9:58:01 PM)

No, why would i want my tax money go to teaching illegals for the most part? English is spoken the world over as much as spanish, but were I in Spain or mexico to stay, then I'd best speak the language,  if you come to america to stay then speak english, it's our official language.  May as well expect us all to know chinese, korean, swahili or whatever too lol. 



Dauric -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/13/2007 10:08:41 PM)

And here's where the whole multilingual camp breaks down: Fairness and Efficiency.

Every culture can make a completely feasable argument as to why their languages should be studied. To take all these in to consideration would make us have to learn dozens of languages. Our streetsigns would be fifty feet tall, and we'd need binoculars to be able to read the ones at the top. Food will come in bulk packages just to make room for the nutritional information. Our government offices would be awash in additional paperwork.

Okay, so we can't accomidate all languages, but what about ones that are important. Fine, where are we basing this decision on? No municipality will have exactly the same language requirements as any other. If every municipality creates requirents based on their needs, then we all start communicating differently in the same nation. We accept this model, and people in Washinton DC really -will- be speaking a different language as the rest of the country, and California might as well actually be another planet.

And then we abandon the 'Lets be fair and let everyone speak their own language" for simple efficiency. One language, one set of paperwork, one set of street signs, one set of boxes in the supermarket. The faction of humanity that conqured this region the best (eg: the last ones standing when the gunsmoke cleared) speak American English. The government works in AE, it's the basis of all 50states government, it's the basis of (most) county, city and town administrations. You can cross the entire domain of the United States and be assured that -someone- speaks American English, and that there's enough people speaking it that you can do most whatever you need to communicating with whoever lives wherever you go in the USA, in American English.

Ever so slightly off topic; To those who bemoan that language is a part of their culture, and that we're opressing their culture by demandimng they speak english:

The prosperity and success of the United States of America is a result of the culture of the Unites States. If you come to the United States to partake of the American Dream, you come to the United States to benefit -directly- from the culture of the United States. You leave behind your nation to come to our nation because you belive our nation is better in some way, you must accept that you need to leave behind aspects of your culture that make your nation what you do not want it to be, and you must accept those aspects of the United States' culture that makes the United States what it is. To do otherwise is to attempt to make the United States of America into exactly what it was that you traveled and fought so hard to leave behind.

At least that's my $0.02 U.S.,

Dauric.



MzMia -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/13/2007 10:13:19 PM)

[sm=applause.gif][sm=applause.gif] Wonderful post dauric.
Thank you for making your point so eloquently.
To me, it boils down to...if you want to learn Spanish in
order to interact with the new wave of immigrants, fine.
But you should NOT have to learn Spanish to live, work and
function in the United States!



EgosumDominus -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/13/2007 10:53:33 PM)

Very well said...I am impressed.



NavyDDG54 -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 1:03:30 AM)

My question:
If the ballots for elections are in spanish...yet the candidate dont speak spanish and dont give speeches in spanish, how do they make an informed vote?



LadyEllen -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 2:59:13 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: NavyDDG54

My question:
If the ballots for elections are in spanish...yet the candidate dont speak spanish and dont give speeches in spanish, how do they make an informed vote?


Good point. We just had an election here, and one of the local Bangladeshi candidates was found to be illiterate in English...... how on earth he could have participated in council meetings I dont know, being unable to read the agenda or minutes etc. More interestingly, the ward he stood for is only 25% Bangladeshi by population, leaving the rest of us unable to communicate with our representative.

I happen to speak three languages including English - I'm a bit of a freak as Brits go as most dont speak even English that well. Learning other languages has enormous benefits for all sorts of reasons, and I really wish our white population would learn another language.

But, as I think others have pointed out already, language is vital for culture and for identity. One cannot and will never build a coherent society with a common identity, if there are multiple languages in use. The most recent example of failure in this is the Austro-Hungaran Empire which ended up as a morass of languages for which a Byzantine bureaucracy was required, and which also severely hampered that Empire in WWI to be able to do very much at all.

One can look at countries like Switzerland and Belgium, where there are multiple official languages. But the factors at work there are very different to those being discussed here. Switzerland has four official languages, but for the most part, due to geography and administrative organisation, the language groups are separated. With Belgium's two languages, the populations are again mostly separated, and even then one finds that there is evidence of rivalry between the two groups.

Language is something which is inclusive of those speaking it, but also exclusive of those who dont speak it, and therein lies the problem. When one cannot speak to another person one does not speak to him. When one finds oneself in an environment where one does not speak the language, one becomes fearful of what and who is being discussed. Short of having every citizen become multi-lingual - which isnt ever going to be possible - multiple languages cause division, antipathy, fear and dislike and fracture a nation as easily as they fracture a small community.

E



swtnsparkling -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 3:22:53 AM)

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .

Press "1" for English.


Press "2" to disconnect until you learn to speak English



Squeakers -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 3:44:12 AM)

     The English invaded America, we could all be speaking some form of Native American language and back then the different tribes had many different forms of language.  
    I, for one, think it would be great to be able to use my limited Spanish more often because if I don't use it, I'll lose it.   Speaking 2 languages is going to put me in a better position for employment than those speaking just English.   I think it's pretty neat when I get an email at work that is written in Spanish and I can actually translate it.      
  



pahunkboy -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 5:29:48 AM)

i hadnt quite seen the question framed this way.

would this apply to the courts-?  that form of english i do not english. if you say you dont understand you never leave. 

then when shopping- i like to read what the widget does. well- to descipher this in 7 languaaaaaches is dumb. i cant tell u how many tinmes i put the item back thimking "oh well" ill live.



boytoy4female -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 5:46:50 AM)

English should be the language. America is a melting pot. This can only be achieved through sharing of experiences and ideas. This can't happen if you dont speak the common language. Additionally, English is becoming the world language. Just think of the tax savings if we printed US documents in English only.



cjenny -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 6:00:33 AM)

To become an American citizen they do have to pass a written English test, I've not seen a copy nor do I know how difficult/easy it is. But I do know there is some sort of testing done.
I cannot even imagine the difficulty in moving to a foreign language country & I have nothing but admiration for those that do learn a new language. I speak only some rudimentary Spanish (I can ask for the bathroom lol), suddenly living in an all Spanish country would be scary. I applaud those that do manage to learn English and I empathize with those that struggle.
So many other countries teach their children another language than their own, particularly the English language. Personally I think that our kids should also be taught another language, the world is shrinking and I think it is going to become important.

OP, learning Spanish is a smart thing to do. I see many jobs that while not requiring the ability to speak Spanish let it be known that it is a leg up in the company.

Hasta la vista.... baby.



Dauric -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 6:19:33 AM)

Well, as I said in my first post, adopting a second official language in the U.S. is just masking the real issue. Mexican officials have been quoted admitting Mexico has a policy of encouraging it's citizens to cross the U.S. border, where they can make more money than they ever could make at nearly any job in Mexico itself, then take the American currency back with them where Mexico can make use of the international value of the dollar in comparison to the value of their own Peso.

Our neighboring country has a policy of disregarding our borders, and makes it economically preferable for it's citizens to violate U.S. sovreignty than it is to build up their own economy.

We shouldn't be debating what languages to speak in the U.S., we should be debating how to get Mexico economically stable so that it's people don't need to break the law of the U.S. to keep a roof over their heads back home.

$0.02,

Dauric.



LadyPact -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 6:25:28 AM)

I have to say that I agree with the majority.  While I applaud you, MzMia, for taking on the challenge of learning another language, I do not see the immigrants of today being any different than the immigrants from, for example, a century ago.  Almost everyone in the country now is a decendant of an immigrant from somewhere else.  They, or their children, learned the language so that they could better themselves in this country.  Very few of U/us are running around speaking the native tongue (only) of wherever it was that our earlier generations came from to this country.
 
I think somewhere in the original, MzMia mentioned that She will be learing a second language to improve Her earning potential.  Why is this any different than people coming to this country?  Part of the reason is that major corporations have found that offerring services in Spanish increases their business.  If they don't want to learn the language, it's easy enough to find businesses that will cater to non-english speaking customers.  How this eventually trickled down to our government decided it was also necessarry to include Spanish is beyond Me, but since Spanish is provided, why bother learning English?
 
It seems to Me that one of the ways W/we could curb illegal immigration would be if W/we were more firm about English being the language that's spoken in this country.... but that is another thread.



juliaoceania -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 7:42:38 AM)

I remember when globalization first occurred. All the labels on things started to be printed in multiple languages for the global economy. I was in my late teens or early 20s when I first noticed this trend, and I remember it making me uncomfortable. I remember asking myself why this was, and it felt threatening somehow.

I desire strongly to learn Spanish. I hate that I am monolingual. I wish we would start teaching kids Spanish in grammar school. Our kids would only benefit in the long run. I say this because while we go around invading other countries, we have no real knowledge of any other language to speak of for the most part. A lot of those immigrants that get bashed in the USA ARE bilingual, which is more than we can say about many of our kids.

There will be some that resent their kids being "forced" to learn a foriegn language, but aren't kids forced to learn lots of things? How is learning to speak Spanish any different that being forced to learn long division?

I believe that forms dealing with things that could impact health should be printed in many languages, and I believe driving is something that impacts the health of all. I want to know that all the drivers on the road are licensed. It does not matter to me what language they passed their test in, all that matters to me is that they know the rules of the road. If we enable people to get licenses it is more likely that they will know these rules and be safer for it.... they will drive most likely anyways.

Other forms I do not support being in many languages... like ballots for example, although I have no problem with people having a friend vote with them to help interpret... not only foriegn born people have trouble reading English after all, we have lots of illiterate people running around that have trouble with English too



kittinSol -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 7:46:41 AM)

Why not? Spanish is fast becoming the most widely spoken language in the United States (as a matter of fact, I think it will be the majority language in twenty years or so).

Many federations have multiple official languages, Switzerland being one of them (over there, there are four 'official' languages, but English is fast becoming the fifth one, and nobody's complaining). It doesn't harm the democratic process, au contraire. Besides, Spanish has been spoken on these shores since the XVIth century.

I think it's good to widen a country's cultural horizons, and languages are a sure way to start doing that. Oh! And language learning should be part of the school curriculum and become compulsory learning from the elementary school upwards.

Bon appetit :-)



LaTigresse -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 7:55:58 AM)

I agree, I think this is one of the areas our country's schools are far inferiour. I think all children should have to learn several languages, beginning in grade school. Personally I think spanish and french or german would be two excellent additions.

However my reasoning has nothing at all to do with accomodating immigrants. In business and travel our world is shrinking quickly. More and more people are traveling outside the boundaries of the United States. I think it is frustrating as hell to take a vacation and yet not be able to converse with the bulk of the population where I am. I just look at what languages are most common and which would be most useful. Obviously Spanish in some form or other will go quite far. In Europe it appears that most people are multi-lingual and that english, french, spanish....one of the three, would probably get you pretty far in being able to converse.



kittinSol -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 8:06:21 AM)

Yes! And it's been shown that learning at least another language from an early age is excellent for cognitive development and the acquisition of learning skills.

Hablas espanol? Allons au restaurant. Que bella raggazza! Ich lie bedich (probably wrong). Su filou.




merrysbrat -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 8:10:50 AM)

Why is it spanish that has to be learned as a second language? Why not german, so my family can go back to speaking it's original language, or swedish, or french? If people don't want to learn english when they move her either through choice or necessity then it's their own fault if they can't communicate well.



kittinSol -> RE: Should English and Spanish be America's Official languages? (5/14/2007 8:14:00 AM)

That's why in countries where languages are taught at school, pupils have a choice of foreign languages to pick from.

The OP mentioned Spanish because, as I noted in my first post, it is fast becoming a (very) widely used language in the States. And as I mentioned it will soon overtake English as the majority language. Nothing stops you from picking up German on your own though :-)

*head in Teach Yourself Hebrew at the moment*



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