Debate Should the U.S. make english their official language?

While people may think that making english can make for an easy transition, it can be the complete opposite. The thing that makes our country exceptional is that we have no official culture, we absorb the cultures of others who come here. Making english the official language would be making the U.S. very inclusive, hindering its mixed culture and the very foundation it was built on.

 

Guess what? The indians got PWNED and are no longer the majority. When the people who dont speak english are the majority, then maybe your argument will be valid.

 

3. Almost done with a 4th, and will be working on a 5th.

@Y35: Don't quote huge walls of text!

 

So you're implying that the Indians were in fact not a majority when settlers first arrived, and that their minority automatically qualified their language below? Are you saying that they, human beings goddammit, are any less than yourself?

Typical imperialistic Caucasian hedonist attitude. Let's use guns! Even though the very invention that makes guns work routes back to China. We'll use our ships and go to America. There, we can push aside lands owned by the Native Americans in our own hypocritical capitalist fashion. Then we can enslave an entire race in the African continent, ship them over the Atlantic Sea to America and work them to death. Then, when immigrants from Europe come to become part of the prosper of America, then we can show them our paved golden roads, where dreams are made possible! But Asian immigrants? Oh no. They're slant-eyed. They look funny. Let's ban them from ever owning land here and pay them less than half of what we pay Caucasian workers to exploit them!
(seeing as I'm too lazy to edit this, I am Asian American.)

Native Americans have too many languages to standardize? English is an offshoot of Latin. There are hundreds of languages that also offshoot from Latin. French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Hungarian, Swedish, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc. It's exactly the same ****ing idea. Say that in the near future, Africa becomes a superpower and pretty much extends it's imperial regime across the world. Do you like the idea of losing your language because someone else decided that they were the majority and that you would be required to speak their language just because they don't like it when they have to order a burger from you and you only respond in English?


Sound like fun? This thread stinks of American in the worst, most twisted way possible, in a way that twists the very image of the Anglophone language and perverts it.

 

There was a time when they were the majority you stupid ****ing American, the fact that you act proud of your nation committing mass genocide is disgusting and I hope you die.

On topic, what advantage does an official language bring?

 

God damn, dude. That's as ignorant of a line of horse **** as I've ever seen here. You sorely need to improve your understanding of the past and present world around you. Start by dislodging your head from your 4th point of contact.

That feeling of annoyance you get when you can't understand conversations around you is your own paranoia / xenophobia. Where I work Spainish is spoken about 40% of the time by employees and customers alike. So what's my solution? I'm learning Spanish. Variety of language is a cultural treasure that is eroding all over the world.

An official language won't change anything. It will only be symbolic, and will only send an unwelcoming message to huge amounts of people.



I can't believe you said PWND in reference to that. Do you realize that that puts you on about the same level as a ****? I don't think you're a ****, but think about what you're saying before you say it.

You're talking about dialect, not language. This debate is about language. I see what you're trying to say, but it's a line-drawing issue that has a working, accepted solution. English is spoken in the US.

 

Tennessee. I'm done here.

 

Diablo, you're nitpicking the wrong points of Nemihara's post, and you're misunderstanding the majority (pun intended) of what he had to say. The same goes for your reaction to Predicide's post. You should take a step backwards and re-read what was stated before you decide to share your incredibly ludicrous arguments. Though my post doesn't fall under the guidelines of debating, I really just want to nitpick at a bigot's lecture today. I hope that's okay with you.

Yes, the past is the past (you definitely got that down. Congrats!), and what happened then has little to no effect on what's going on in situations of the present, unless you find yourself on trial or in a history class, or possibly in a debate! You're also right about not having to "suffer because of the 'sins of their father'", which I may point out is not the correct saying. Try "our fathers".

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We will forget if we put it behind us.

Well, I'm incredibly glad that the rock you live under has a big enough opening to see that the African race wasn't completely wiped away, but I'm surprised that you didn't catch an incredibly common figure of speech ("worked to death" is what I'm referring to, fyi buddy). Comparing the United States to Brazil over the subject of slavery is invalid. Slavery is slavery; it doesn't matter how many members of our own species were enslaved because it still happened, and we are just as guilty as Brazil is. And just let me add that the whole discussion of slavery is entirely irrelevant to this debate, and you're steering this thread in the wrong direction.

The U.S.A. is not a third world nation, I'll give you that much, but it isn't a rich country either. We base our whole economy on currency that has no real value, and we and are in substantial debt to a variety of countries around the globe. America's streets may be "paved with gold", but that will all change soon, very soon.

What makes you such a ****ing expert on the english language? I assume that you have no credentials in this field. English does have many roots and influences, but latin still trumps them all in regards to majority (pun intended again). English is too big of a melting pot to relate it to any other language.

The United States wasn't established before european colonization took place. The North American continent consisted of territories belonging to tribes, so in theory, a majority did not exist until we committed genocide and annexed their land.

That first snippet of this quote just confirmed that you are quite the bigot. As for the rest of this quote, I only facepalm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ndx_IdlUQU


Now that I got that out out my system, let's get back on subject please. Should the United States make english their official language?

 

Let me squeeze in here with an opinion first. I think that English should be made the official language for the sake of commerce and relations between peoples. I think that the government should make language programs more available to immigrants though. I think that unifying under one language would help the United States, but the states should also encourage keeping cultural roots intact and put a greater emphasis on foreign language in school. I've heard plenty of people who say they are just too dumb to take a language, but it's not as hard as they make it really.

 

It's funny how every time I decide to poke my head back in the debate board I am reminded why I make it a point to not poke my head in the debate board. So much attacking of people and so little attacking of problems (I guess I'm guilty as well, judging from my last post).

Diablo, the only thing of any relevance you have said, that I can even disagree with, is that the past is the past and we should not dwell in it (nothing in your most recent post had any argument whatsoever.)

Unfortunately, it's not so easy to dismiss the past as lessons learned, because the implications of what has happened still have drastic implications on the present. The "sins of the father" as you put it, are still having an effect. It's very easy to not notice this, society has a way of pretending that certain things never happened or don't matter anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You mention Africa. I'm sure you are generally aware that many African nations have somewhat of a poverty problem. Are you aware of what is known as the North-South divide? Probably not, it's not a phrase that's thrown around a lot here in the U.S. Poverty in what are known as 3rd world countries didn't just happen because of drought or famine or living on bad land. The implications of 17th and 18th century European colonialism is, in many cases, the direct root of the divide between rich countries and poor countries to this day. The same colonialism that gave birth to the United States went on all over the world, and in almost every other case, resulted in disaster. I'd be happy to elaborate on this, but it's a long history lesson that doesn't bear telling right now.

The current society you now enjoy is spreading it's culture to some very remote places, crowding out ancient culture everywhere it goes. I know this is incredibly hard to take seriously with the blinders that everyone is issued at birth blocking out all the wrong things. Your culture is not indigenous to any place. It is assimilated, as is everyone who can read this. We are the Borg Cube.

The reason I perpetuate this apparent divergence of the intended topic is that this actually has a lot to do with the root of the language debate. I have to shoot down an argument that so many of you are using for an official language (not all, there are some other, better arguments being used as well) by establishing language is a function of culture. I know it seems to have a more practical use, which it does, but there's more at steak. Hundreds of languages are diminishing, some are all but dead. The more the Borg Cube assimilates, the more culture and language is annihilated.



In conclusion, this could have been written better. What always happens to me in these debates is that if I follow where I am going to it's logical conclusion, I will have written a 5 page term paper with a bunch of documented sources. Only a handful of people are even going to read past the first paragraph of this already and I have already written enough term papers over the past 2 weeks over The Iliad and The Odyssey and Moby **** to dive me mad. So there is no conclusion. Or, more debate less personal attacks please.

 

Although the point about having the English language as our nationally-declared one for commercial reasons is a nice benefit for native English speakers, it is more of a burden for immigrants, many of whom are starting off of scratch with no formal education. If they are now required to learn English - one of the most complex and most mind-bendingly difficult languages to learn - you're basically telling them that they are forced to go through 1 or 2 more years of education just to learn English. As if working for half the wages of an American worker wasn't hard enough without losing half of the day in classes! I am all for capitalism. I believe that people can truly achieve anything that they set themselves to work for hard enough. However, this oppurtunity for greatness means nothing if you cannot even achieve it in your lifetime because of race or education. The majority of us natively-born Americans get it very lightly off. We have parents of whom we can live off of for a while until we are given a modern education and our own jobs. The rest, the 'minority' who will still exist, they have to do everything and anything possible just for the hope that they can make the lives of their children easier.

For an example, my own cultural history. My great-grandfather, Mai Sing, emigrated from China to Hawaii during the Qing Dynsasty, which was when China was being ruled by Manchuria. He immigrated to Hawaii under the basis of a worker's contract; he would work in the sugar plantation fields for an agreed upon amount of time. After a short while, however, he balked off. I'm not too sure why, but based off of local city records, it would seem apparrent that he must have realized how little he was being paid in relation to Caucasian workers. He walked off the job and took refuge with Native Hawaiians in a small fishing village in the Big Island. He knew Chinese. He worked his way into the ranks of the Triad subsection in Hawaii. The Triads were basically the ancestors to modern-day Chinese Mafia. Back then, their goal was to just overthrow the Qing Dynasty and replace it with the Ming Dynasty of the previous. Anyways, so getting back on topic. He knew only Chinese. His family line had to wait a full two generations just to get children who were brought up in English proper, completely formally educated in public high schools, to be able to earn enough money to be considered middle-class. My parents. And at least he immigrated into Hawaii. Asians weren't allowed to own any land at all in the west coast.

Of course, I'm not talking specifically about immigrants or ethnic groups. This can apply in general to people who are in poverty. I don't agree with sending direct or indirect aid to people; at least, not in the sense that socialists have it. I believe that as long as you can give them a handlebar for them to pull themselves up with, then there is an equal way for every person to have a good, successful life. In the ethinc departments, however, people are bridled with both the luggage of lacking their ground to push off of and the luggage of taking language classes for English, in a time when they have no economic basis to be able to. You're telling them that they can't get a job without being able to speak English, but they can't learn the English language without money to sustain them on. You're pushing them years backwards and keeping them from being able to progress through more high-paying jobs. Forcing newcomers to our soceity to learn a different language for purely esthetic reasons is akin to pushing a handicapped-child down a flight of stairs.

That was at Jelleh.

Tennessee, Diablo, referring to the OP about how the government their wants to metaphorically beat the other-language speaking man into a comatose.

 

Hooray for xenophobia under the guise of "Uniting the world".

 

lol are you serious about this paragraph?

Anyways, since I know the main argument for english being the official language is because most of the U.S. speaks it. But what about when the majority language becomes spanish?

 

What language was the constitution written in. What about the Decleration of Independance. I rest my case.

 

What country was the U.S part of before they wrote the constitution? O yea England where there Official Language IS actually English, but now since you are all your own country, you don't have to do what England does do you? Just look at South Africa, there are dozens of "official" languages, because the Country is so diverse. This country is diverse too so why make everyone learn a single "official" language?

 

What does this have to do with anything? So what if these historical documents were written in english.

EDIT: I don't know if you were talking to me STWOW but I agree. Although instead of having many official languages why don't we just have no official languages? It would provide the same effect.

 

O Wait! The U.S does! O joy problem solved

 

It is when you're forced to converse in that language. The long-term effects of learning to speak English might be good, but that's assuming that they can actually 'survive' (for lack of better term) through going through schooling while they are working.

Maybe going from English to an African language might be hard for a native-born English speaker, but you're under no impetus to have to learn a Khoisan language. However, forcing people to learn another language, while they're already searching for jobs in this tough economy, for only the rich man's benefit so he doesn't have to say anything in Spanish...a tad bit unbalanced, don't you think?

Better than saying that English is the master language over every other spoken language in the United States.

Yes. Thank you for repeating what I just said.

Do you see that he himself could not achieve anything notable during his own lifetime? Are you saying that the improving the lives of your descendants is the only aspiration you have in your life? My, aren't you the altruist.

I used that as an example of the stereotypical nature against immigrants. Like, hm, what you're pushing for.

I'm a individualist, not a douchebag. You're taking what I said out of context and trying to say that I'm uncaring towards others, but what I am saying is that I don't believe in either Republican economic philosophy or Democratic economic philosophy. If you're going to soften up corporations or people with stimulus packages, you're just getting them less prepared for a bigger economic crisis, and you're perpetuating the up/down cycle. The economy shouldn't have as much government interference than it does by Republican regulation policies or Democratic regulation policies. But anyways, that goes more off topic. I'll save that for a later debate.

It would be a great, fantastic handlebar to be able to speak the English language, if people could just learn to speak languages in one day. However, you're forgetting the fact that the majority of these people came to America with basically just the clothes on their backs, and many of them, even if the education is free, will still need to be working, just so they can have enough money to have a place to live and something to eat.

Even if you make it more available, you can't make it so they can be learning while they're working.

How are they going to learn it if they have neither the time nor money to be able to do so? Are you going to have the government pay them to go to English classes? It's not the cost of going to a class; it's the cost of missing a paycheck.

So you're saying, keep them stuck working as a manual laborer for 3 years, so they can learn English and eventually have maybe a low management job after 5 years, because people like you who think of them as 'scary' and 'speaking a silly foreign language'?

And how so did you come to the possible conclusion of it being funny? It's an analogy.

Our credit currency is exactly what got America into this economic crisis that we have today. People made horribly stupid credit purchases, couldn't pay it off, and that popped the bubble.

The English language absorbs much from French, Spanish, and other Latin origin languages. When the Norman French invaded and ruled England back in the 9th Century, they impressed a their language into the English language. Words like 'clientèle', 'restaurant', 'entente', 'rendezvous', 'battle', 'fortress', 'court', 'justice', 'parliament', 'siege', 'council', 'tax', 'armor', 'blasé', 'adroit', 'cliché', 'entrepreneur', 'forte', 'gauche', and 'naïve' were all French words that were melded into the English language. There are tons of other situations where English uses borrowed words from Latin. For one example, 'difficult' comes from the Latin word 'difficultatem'.
Additionally, a large number of the states in the United States use non-American names. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee (LOLOLOLOL), Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming are all non-English names. There are only 5 states with English names.

So if you had said that you want to outlaw Judaism because it's a minority religion so that we can make Christianity the state religion, and then someone called you a neo-****, you'd just claim that the means that they achieved their majority doesn't make it any less true? It might be true, but there's a damned big difference between saying something is true and under-exaggerating what happened.

If it's already a majority spoken language, then why do you have to make it's position in the 'top languages' list redundantly enforced? Because you don't like ordering from McDonald's in a language that wouldn't impose any penalties on you to learn? For someone who already is barely struggling to make ends meet, it's akin to trying to force a person who's drowning in the middle of the ocean how to make a boat out of driftwood. Yes, it's a good to be able to know how to make a boat because he might be able to escape once he swims to an island, but for now, he is drowning. Maybe you should teach him to swim?

If you're the people that's all for 'America for Americans', then yes, I do think you're a xenophobic bigot.

You think people who are different than you are scary to you? What are you, xenophobic? Oh. Yeah. You are, actually.

The founding fathers didn't write it in English because they self-righteously thought it was better than any other language; they wrote it in English because they spoke English. Obviously if the 13 colonies were Spanish-ruled before they became independent, this would be los Estados Unidos.


People aren't as lucky to have been born white, born into English-speaking families, and born rich, so that they can give orders contemptously to other people who you think are scary, but are also working hard in order to live in America. Unlike you, of course. But what does that matter; you wouldn't know what it's like, would you? Empathy much?

 

Because that was completely racist, which is what you got the infraction for, discrimination. You generalized all Hispanics as "weird people"

So apparently, you have never lived in another country...
When I moved from Finland I learned English a few years before I left and it was still hard. People coming from Mexico almost always don't have any prior knowledge of English and that means they have to learn it when they get here. That takes A LONG time and it took me over a year to even have a normal conversation with an English-speaking person. If there is an "official" language, people are required to write all public signs/buildings in that language, as in Canada where everything must be written in French and English. That means all the immigrants would not be able to do ANYTHING until they took the year required to grasp English. As of right now, there are Spanish shops/grocery stores ect. for Spanish speaking people. If English was the official language, those wouldn't exist, leaving Hispanics in the dark. And Nemi is not being bigot what so ever, it is quite obvious you are.