Friendswood, Texas, may soon give residents the right to speak to town employees in English
Dennis Baron
debaron at UIUC.EDU
Tue Feb 6 04:26:58 UTC 2007
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Web of Language:
Friendswood, Texas, may soon give residents the right to speak to
town employees in English
According o the Houston Chronicle, the Friendswood, Texas, city
council may soon pass a law requiring that “every person in
Friendswood is entitled to be able to communicate with City Council
or city employees in English, to receive information from or
contribute information to city employees in English, and to be
notified of official orders in English.”
The key word here is entitled. Anyone in Friendswood should be able
to walk into City Hall and find out the name of the mayor, in
English. Or call up the local police station to report a burglary,
in English. Or learn whether a fence they’re building conforms to
zoning requirements, in English. ... As its name implies,
Friendswood was founded by Quakers ... According to the 2000 U.S.
Census, 92% of Friendswood’s residents speak only English. Of the 8%
who use other languages, 88% also speak English either well or very
well. That leaves only 270 of the town’s 26,255 adult residents who
speak English poorly or not at all. It’s unlikely that any of these
nonanglophones work for the city, which means that Friendswood’s
citizens don’t really have to worry about communicating with their
government in English. ..."
read the rest on the Web of Language
DB
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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www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage
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