Gender neutrality and language

[Dennis Baron]

It's not so much "If English was good enough for Jesus..." -- most of  
English-first arguments focus on English as the language of America's  
civic sacred texts, the Constitution, Declaration of Independence,  
sometimes extended to the Federalist Papers, the Star-Spangled  
Banner, and the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as the U.S. Code (the  
set of federal laws).  The argument is that no one can understand the  
meaning of American democracy unless they can read such documents in  
the original -- and this is typically argued by those pious souls who  
get their own religion in translation because they can't understand  
Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, or Latin, not to mention Arabic or Sanskrit.

However there are official English and religion comments, too, and I  
just came across one this week, when I tracked down what has been  
called the "Babel Proclamation."  On May 23, 1918, William Harding,  
Gov. of Iowa, issued a proclamation banning the use of foreign  
languages in public in Iowa.  This was, of course, in response to the  
US entering WWI in April, 1917.  Harding's proclamation contains 4  
operative provisions:

1. English should and must be the only medium of instruction in  
public, private, denominational or other similar schools.
2. Conversation in public places should be in the English language.
3. All public addresses should and must be in the English language.
4. Let those who cannot speak or understand the English language  
conduct their religious worship in their homes.

Commenting to a reporter on his proclamation, Harding is quoted as  
insisting, “There is no use in anyone wasting his time praying in  
other languages than English. God is listening only to the English  
tongue.”   Several days after Harding issued his proclamation, former  
Pres. Theodore Roosevelt spoke in Des Moines in support of the  
governor's order.  It was during this speech at the end of May that  
Roosevelt told the crowd, “This is a nation, not a polyglot boarding  
house,” an expression that is still invoked by English-only supporters.

Many Iowa churches rushed to comply with Harding's English-only  
order, but in Dec., 1918, after the war had ended, Harding rescinded  
the proclamation.

Dennis




On Mar 1, 2008, at 7:21 PM, Siegel, Jason F. wrote:


In an effort to redirect the discussion back to language policy and  
away from a topic that could easily be argued about with no end in  
sight, I would like to take the opportunity to pose a question to the  
list (and this is the genuine inquiry of a relative newcomer to the  
field): How often is religion invoked in discussions of language  
policy across the world? I've heard the old quote in support of  
Official English in the U.S. "If it's good enough for Jesus, it's  
good enough for me." (attributed to various people). In the research  
I've done on French policy, however, religion seems to be completely  
absent from the public discourse on language policy. So again, how  
frequently do religious concerns form a part of the discussion of  
language policy? Do we see it more often in certain types of language  
policy (e.g. feminization) than in others (e.g. acquisition planning)?

--Jason


--
Jason F. Siegel
Ph.D. Student, Linguistics & French Linguistics
Department of French & Italian
Ballantine Hall 642
1020 East Kirkwood Avenue
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405-7103
USA
siegeljf at indiana.edu


Quoting L Pierce <ldpierce at yahoo.com>:

> It's recorded in the BIble.  You can read the history
> for yourself, as you can read the histories of the
> previously quoted men (quoted by an earlier
> contributor) in other recorded histories; I gather
> that is the empirical evidence you have for them.  I
> don't really know why you want to change the issue,
> but I am happy to answer your question.
>
> Lisa
>
> --- Ronald Kephart <rkephart at unf.edu> wrote:
>
>> On 2/29/08 7:13 PM, "L Pierce" <ldpierce at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > What some ignorant men wrote hundreds of years ago
>> did
>> > not create the order, God did...
>>
>>  We have empirical evidence that men wrote those
>> rules. Do you have the same
>> quality evidence for your assertion?
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________ 
> ______________
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>





Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron

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