Posted by Sedruce at 11:54pm Mar 2 '08I just received a chain letter from a friend. The gist of it was that several senators, including Presidential candidates Obama, Clinton, Dodd, and Biden, recently voted against declaring English as the United States' official language. In typical Ignorant American style, I wasn't even aware that we didn't have an official language. I assumed English was.
I really don't know much about the why's of having an official language. So I replied to my friend asking her to defend her chain letter and tell me why she felt this was important.
Her response was two main points. Firstly, she felt that it is dangerous for people to drive without knowing the language. Currently, driver's license tests can be taken in people's native languages, and the signs on the test will be printed in the native language. Obviously, real signs are all printed in English.
Her other point was that we are wasting immense amounts of money by buying books for non-English-speaking students, money that we desperately need for the betterment of our schools.
I feel that the first point is a bit of a moot point. For one thing, they still have to take the practical test, which will be done on real roads, which means English signs. For another thing, so long as they can read numbers, I can't think of a single sign that I genuinely read. Stop signs are those red ones that have 8 sides. Yield signs are triangular. Signs are designed so you don't actually have to read them, just so long as you can understand the numbers on speed limits.
The second point makes more sense to me. So many of our schools don't have nearly enough money, especially the ones in multilingual neighborhoods, so I can see her point about not wanting to waste the tax money.
What advantages are there of not declaring English our official language?
What do you guys think...should we declare it, or not?
I really don't know much about the why's of having an official language. So I replied to my friend asking her to defend her chain letter and tell me why she felt this was important.
Her response was two main points. Firstly, she felt that it is dangerous for people to drive without knowing the language. Currently, driver's license tests can be taken in people's native languages, and the signs on the test will be printed in the native language. Obviously, real signs are all printed in English.
Her other point was that we are wasting immense amounts of money by buying books for non-English-speaking students, money that we desperately need for the betterment of our schools.
I feel that the first point is a bit of a moot point. For one thing, they still have to take the practical test, which will be done on real roads, which means English signs. For another thing, so long as they can read numbers, I can't think of a single sign that I genuinely read. Stop signs are those red ones that have 8 sides. Yield signs are triangular. Signs are designed so you don't actually have to read them, just so long as you can understand the numbers on speed limits.
The second point makes more sense to me. So many of our schools don't have nearly enough money, especially the ones in multilingual neighborhoods, so I can see her point about not wanting to waste the tax money.
What advantages are there of not declaring English our official language?
What do you guys think...should we declare it, or not?
United States' official language - Sedruce