Posted by Rick at 8:30pm Sep 6 '09I was watching part of the movie Windtalkers.
The It was based on what actually happened in WW2, or so I'm told. The premise is code breaking was a big part of the war. Historically we broke the German's code, and saw the results. So to make sure the Germans and Japanese didn't break our codes, we didn't use english. We used the language the navaho (I think) used. They spoke english, and they still had their own language that they used to communicate with. This was in the days before the internet, so their language would not have been readily available to a german, let alone a Japanese enemy combatant.
So, we of America get a tangible, useful skill from having multiple languages floating about.
Consider if we ever go to war with Mexico, its not out of the realm of possibility considering the problems they have. Their are plenty of Americans who speak spanish and have an idea of what the Mexican culture is like. That is a tactical advantage to winning both war and peace.
But then we get into a problem, one that I've been told both India and Canada are going through. While America doesn't have an "official" language, it is understood by custom and tradition that all Americans speak english. The Constitution is in English, when you conduct business you use english, The written sign are all in English. The founders debated whether we should have swiched to another language: both Latin and German were on the table, and they chose English.
As Americans we are proud of our diversity and past heritages. But there is a fine line between being an American of italian descent who speaks both italian and english and can survive in both countries just fine, and an Italian who speaks fractured to no english who is stuck in America. You can go down the list of cultures and apply that to all of them.
It is my position we need to reastablish that line as a cultural norm. You can be proud of your heritage, but you are an American first, and one of the ways we are all Americans is we speak English.
The It was based on what actually happened in WW2, or so I'm told. The premise is code breaking was a big part of the war. Historically we broke the German's code, and saw the results. So to make sure the Germans and Japanese didn't break our codes, we didn't use english. We used the language the navaho (I think) used. They spoke english, and they still had their own language that they used to communicate with. This was in the days before the internet, so their language would not have been readily available to a german, let alone a Japanese enemy combatant.
So, we of America get a tangible, useful skill from having multiple languages floating about.
Consider if we ever go to war with Mexico, its not out of the realm of possibility considering the problems they have. Their are plenty of Americans who speak spanish and have an idea of what the Mexican culture is like. That is a tactical advantage to winning both war and peace.
But then we get into a problem, one that I've been told both India and Canada are going through. While America doesn't have an "official" language, it is understood by custom and tradition that all Americans speak english. The Constitution is in English, when you conduct business you use english, The written sign are all in English. The founders debated whether we should have swiched to another language: both Latin and German were on the table, and they chose English.
As Americans we are proud of our diversity and past heritages. But there is a fine line between being an American of italian descent who speaks both italian and english and can survive in both countries just fine, and an Italian who speaks fractured to no english who is stuck in America. You can go down the list of cultures and apply that to all of them.
It is my position we need to reastablish that line as a cultural norm. You can be proud of your heritage, but you are an American first, and one of the ways we are all Americans is we speak English.
official language for USA - Rick