[lg policy] Donald L. Gilleland: English should be U.S. national language; let's finally make it official

[Harold Schiffman]

Donald L. Gilleland: English should be U.S. national language; let's
finally make it official


    Posted February 6, 2012 at 4 a.m.


Press 1 for English. Does that make sense in an English-speaking
country? We may be the only place in the world where citizens have to
press 1 to hear a message in their own language. For 236 years English
has been the principal language spoken in the United States. President
Theodore Roosevelt once said, "We have one language here, and that is
the English language " English has replaced French as the
international business language and the international language of
aviation.

According to Charles Krauthammer, conservative columnist and Fox News
commentator, 31 states have made English their official language, and
official English bills are pending in a dozen more. But, English has
never been designated as our national language. In almost every
session of Congress someone introduces legislation to make English the
official language of the United States. However, none of those efforts
have been successful, and special-interest lobbies have been laboring
for years to undermine that concept.

According to The Phyllis Schlafly Report, the billion-dollar
boondoggle called bilingual education has " always been a fraud
because, contrary to the term bilingual, it doesn't teach two
languages; instead it keeps immigrant children languishing in
Spanish-speaking classes for six years or more."

California and Arizona decisively rejected bilingual education, and
test scores in 2007 indicated that children progressed faster in
California schools after they started immersing students in English.

Historically our nation was forged out of millions of immigrants from
all over the world, who assimilated into our country and proudly
learned English so they could meld into our culture as quickly as
possible.

Now record numbers of non-English speaking immigrants are flooding
into our country and, instead of assimilating into our culture, insist
on bringing their culture with them and sometimes refuse to learn
English. This attitude is encouraged by our government, which promotes
diversity by increasingly operating in languages other than English

In recent years our government has provided bilingual ballots,
education, publications and similar services at public expense. That
would seem to discourage new immigrants from learning English.
However, we have a linguistic paradox in our country. According to the
Language Policy website, "While the number of minority language
speakers is increasing, so is the rate of linguistic assimilation. All
available evidence suggests that today's newcomers are learning
English — and losing their native tongues — more rapidly than ever
before."

The 1990 census claimed at least 323 separate languages are spoken in
the United States. However, the Pro English website claims that
learning to speak English empowers immigrants. "By more than 2-1
immigrants themselves say the U.S. should expect new immigrants to
learn English and by a 9-1 margin Hispanic immigrants believe learning
English is essential to succeed in the U.S."

Charles Hulse, in a New York Times article, claimed that designating
English as our official national language would be " equivalent to
establishing a formal national anthem or motto and that it would
simply affirm the preeminence of English without overturning laws or
rules on bilingualism."

Even so, no legislation has ever been passed to establish English as
our national language. As strange as it seems, in this 21st century,
we have no official national language.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/feb/06/donald-l-gilleland-english-should-be-us-national/

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