What should our official language really be?

:shrug:

spoken on a regular basis. english is NOT my native tongue, and I speak several languages, depending on the people around me. The utter arrogance of the "english only" and "official language" crowd has never ceased to amaze me, particularly given the fact that many native-born do not seem able to speak their language effectively (not just *)

most of my european friends speak at least two or three languages. it is considered the mark of an uneducated person who is only able to speak one.

next clause???

America is NOT Europe, and it's UTTER ARROGANCE to come to this country and expect us to change to be like YOU.

:toast:

Q'Plah!

Boy, sure do miss Star Trek.....

One of the best shows ever...

drawing board.

and speak the language of the people who already live in that country.

Therefore our official language should be Dakota/Lakota. Or Algonquin, or Choctaw, or Ojibwe...

It's never offered on automated phone systems, and 'm sick of the discrimination!!!

Enquiring minds want to know

:D

Well... if English was a minority language threatened with extinction then I could understand that there should/would be means to protect the language, as in the case of Welsh in Wales and Irish Gaelic in Ireland. Certainly ensuring that media is available in that language and that in official documents that the language is used has helped to preserve a language.

However... it is not as if English is a threatened language (if you read the Lounge I suppose you could say that English is like Kudzu). I agree with others that certain other languages should be given protected status and that would be that of the original North Americans if we're right in doing it. I don't know how many people still use indiginous language in daily use around parts of North America. If that's the case then rather than making English the official language we ought to be righting part of the many many many wrongs that we as European ancestry (and I do include me in this despite the fact that my family has no roots in North America until me) have committed throughout the Americas. Things such as ensuring that in areas where there is an indiginous language in daily use that there are various media outlets available to them (e.g. radio, tv programming, internet, newspapers, etc), that it is recognized as a language that local, state and federal government would do business in within that locality. Also all children should at least until grade 10 be required to be taught in that language and in certain instances it would be permissible for non-language classes to be taught in that language.

Mark.

01001110
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Only I was thinking of SQL or VB.NET

It's what we all speak anyway

But by all means, let's absorb the time and energy of our Senators and Representatives, at a cost of god-knows-how-much-an-hour, when they could be actually doing something worthwhile, in THIS pointless bloviating match.

irritatedly,
Bright

news from The Hill in the last few days lots like the Rs are busy trying to regain their sagging wingnut support with redmeat wedges, including the Marriage Amendment and Official English.

We can't stop the bloviating, but we can look for effective ways to ridicule it: one of the best cracks I've seen on DU so far is that we need a Constitutional Amendment requiring the President to speak English.

No one can stop languages from evolving. Go ahead and codify English as the national language, but in 500 years there will likely be no living English, per se. It will be something else.

affected the popularity of Celtic, that the Norman invasion changed Anglo-Saxon, that Gullah and Ballimorese and Chinglish are all part of some unstoppable organic process ...

My great-great-grandmother was born, lived, and died in the old Pennsylvania Dutch country, spoke German her whole life and never learned English. Yet somehow the Republic survived ...

:D

We might be more related than you think. My great-grandmother was from Pennsylvania too, spoke German but I don't know if she never learned English. Her daughter certainly did, but retained her German (she spoke French too). My grandfather spoke eight languages.

The oldest lineage I have traced goes back to 17th C Scotland... among many other things, I am a Highlander! :D

As for the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, don't forget Hadrian and the Roman horde that invaded from the South... and who knows who else. :)

Have they forgotten that the US is the land of immigrants?

I can really say that I am a native, since my grandmother was 1/2 Blackfoot Indian, I say that Blackfeet should be the nation's language.

.. handed to you on a platter. The lovely post #3 by ocelot is a perfect retort to an imbecilic wingnut racist talking point.

.. You force us to send our toddlers away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions.
You forbid them their languages, then further say
That American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe, then stress
That the nation of leeches that conquered this land
Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best.
And yet where in your history books is the tale
Of the genocide basic to this country's birth,
Of the preachers who lied, how the Bill of Rights failed,
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth?
And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell
As it rang with a thud
O'er Kinzua mud ..
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/mycount.html

It's the next phase in the Plan! :evilgrin:

Freedom, Democracy, Liberation, Leadership, Fair, Balanced -

"Its a beautiful thing, the destruction of words"
- George Orwell, "1984"

It should be German as it fits the fascist mindset so well. (My apologies to liberal Germans whom I know had nothing to do with Nazis).

Let's REALLY get back to basics around here.

Three cheers for cuniform!

eom

And if you believe Neal Stephenson, it has magical properties.

We're such a Christian nation, after all.

so he wuz an East Texas boy, and they ain't nobody speakin no Aramaic in East Texas ... Sheesh!

Initiate/tone_question17/ask: Why not speak computer code?
Initiate/followup_12/reasoning: It would be very easy to work with computers.
Initiate/tone_question17B/askopinion: What do you think?
Initiate/Input=variableX:"X"
Initiate_check/If true add one to YES
Initiate_check/If false add one to NO
END<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Here is a sample for those who don't know it.


Leet Speak: 4LL |\|0|\|3 L337 $P34|< b00|<$ $|-|4LL b3 947|-|3r3D, bUr|\|, pr0/\/\PL'/ bUr|\|7 4|\|D r3PL4(3D.

Or in English: All none leet speak books shall be gathered, burn, promply burnt and replaced.

Edit: Laughing will have to be banned to. You will simply have to yell LOL! at the top of your longues if you find something funny.

Awww, yeah, baby.