English Is Now the Official Language of the USA. Should We Care? – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

As President Trump mentioned in Tuesday’s address to the joint session of Congress, he signed an executive order designating English as the nation’s official language on March 1. But should we care?

Inasmuch as the intent of Trump’s order is to “promote unity” and “cultivate a shared American culture for all citizens,” the answer is yes. To the extent that there will be no real impact on current practices and procedures in use by the federal government and its affiliated agencies, the answer is no.

Which, quite frankly, is as it should be. When you consider that Russia systematically repressed the Ukrainian language in the mid-17th and 18th centuries and Polish in the 19th and 20th, it’s been relatively smooth sailing for the United States. And yet, by not having had to care much about adopting an official language, our soon-to-be-250-year-old nation may not appreciate the cultural significance of having a common language in the way that Ukraine and Poland do.

But that doesn’t mean the question of a national language has been without contention. The refusal of German immigrants to speak English in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania annoyed Benjamin Franklin. He had a bone to pick with them anyway since, among his many entrepreneurial pursuits, he unsuccessfully attempted to publish a German-language newspaper and was apparently embittered by the Germans’ pacifist lethargy toward fighting the Indians.

The Continental Congress, convinced that the ideas of political liberty were universal and communicable in any language, had no problem publishing promotional material for the Revolution in English, German, and French. However, that did not prevent John Adams from advocating standards for English and supporting the erection of a language academy. Fortunately, the Continental Congress deemed such measures inappropriate for the federal government and a threat to individual liberties. In fact, it wasn’t until 1906 that the federal government felt it could no longer be so disinterested and finally designated English proficiency as a requirement for naturalization.

A bit surprisingly for such a symbolic gesture, Trump’s executive order does not specify “American English” as the country’s official language. Perhaps it would be difficult to determine precisely what “American English” is, but it was not at all a moot point for dictionary author Noah Webster, who believed that “as an independent nation, our honor (sic!) requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government.”

Therein lie the roots of American spelling, something I was asked to repress while working in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the reason for which I can only suspect had something to do with a perceived American imperialism (check out the latest papal encyclical if you don’t believe me). In any case, things came to a head in 1923 when Washington J. McCormick, a Congressman from Montana, spearheaded a bill to declare “American,” rather than English, the official language. Though Irish immigrants enthusiastically supported the attempt to sever linguistic ties to England, the bill was rejected.

In the 4th grade, I remember learning that German had fallen one vote short of becoming the nation’s official language. A silly legend, of course, but less silly when we consider that bilingual education has had a consistent presence in American schools, the main point being that one of those languages was always English.

Accordingly, Bill Clinton’s 2000 executive order to improve access to services for persons with limited English proficiency didn’t turn any heads. The Department of Justice was assigned the responsibility of coordinating the order’s implementation, but it naturally had more important things to do. Trump’s order simply eliminates the obligation to follow whatever feeble guidelines the Justice Department has provided agencies hitherto.

Roman Palomares, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, has criticized the order, arguing that the “Founding Fathers enshrined freedom of speech in the First Amendment without limiting it to one language. They envisioned a nation where diversity of thought, culture, and expression would be its greatest strength.” Palomares purports that “declaring English as the only official language directly contradicts that vision. America thrives when we embrace inclusivity, not when we silence the voices of millions who contribute to its success.”

Palomares’s take on the Founders is pretty good, but I doubt he will persuade anyone that the executive order will “silence the voices of millions.” After all, approximately 180 of the world’s 193 countries have an official language, and in nearly all of them, several languages are spoken no matter how small the minority.

French has been the official language of the French Republic since 1992, but the number of immigrants still waiting to learn their first French word upon arrival only grows. Though Canada passed the Official Languages Act in 1969, enshrining both English and French, the Act has been revised three times and will likely face further revisions as the country’s linguistic diversity reaches unprecedented levels, with one in five Canadian households speaking a non-official language at home.

So, should it matter that English is now the official language of the United States? Two hundred and fifty years is not that long, but it appears long enough for America to begin molding and maturing her own cultural, literary, and poetic identity. Granted, dialects and accents reflect provincial cultural differences, and the range of foreign languages represented by immigrants will widen, but the very fact that there is such a thing as American spelling says something.

I speak several languages, but none will ever embed itself in my conscience the way English did when I first heard my mother’s sweet voice singing nursery rhymes. I enjoy poetry in several languages, but none will resonate with me like Carl Sandburg’s, whose city I grew up in.

I have heard and will continue to hear many political speeches, but none will elevate my spirit like the Gettysburg Address. The fact that Lincoln delivered it in the same language my mother sang to me and in the same language I first read Sandburg is not accidental. In fact — pace Mr. Palomares — I attribute my very ability to “embrace inclusivity” to English, for that was the language in which I first learned that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

I hope Trump’s executive order will have few practical consequences on the multilingual richness of this country, but I couldn’t be happier that my nation is not embarrassed to acknowledge English as the means by which it “promotes unity” and “cultivates a shared American culture for all citizens.”

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