There is NOTHING wrong with making English the official language of the USA

Maybe you will be surprised to read this, maybe you will not.  The United States of America does NOT have an official language.  No, English is not the official language of this country.  Many states, however, have declared English as their official language. 

The question is, do we need an official language?  I say we do, but I also think that this is not just a yes/no question.  First, there is the issue of definition.  Many people call the Official English movement “English-Only” where you can only speak English in this country.  Now, that might be the intention of some activists, but it is not mine.  My definition of an official language is a language that everyone understands, thus making it the working language of the country. 

Now that we have cleared up my definition, I can move on to explain why having an official language, English in this case, is beneficial.  We are a melting pot.  As immigrants (and I am one), one thing we take with us to our new country is our language.  Now, we don’t and shouldn’t just forget our first languages.  But at the same time, a common language is needed for different groups of people to communicate.  Nothing gets done if nobody can understand each other! 

English is the perfect candidate for the official language of the USA.  It is the language that our founding fathers spoke and wrote the Constitution with.  It is very similar to the reason why Portuguese is the official language of another melting pot, Brazil (a former Portuguese colony).  One thing that annoys me is the opponents of Official English making it sound like immigrants would magically forget their roots and first language if they learn English.  To me, that is arrogance in disguise.  Everyone is capable of being fluent in at least two languages. 

We do, however, need to careful with drafting an official language policy.  A good policy will require all routine official/government business be conducted and written in English, but also understand that immigrants do need a little bit of time to learn English.  So it is actually necessary to have multilingual services for situations concerning immediate safety.  A good policy will also not limit language choices in private conversations.  A good policy will allow using foreign languages to promote tourism.  Tourists are guests in this country and we need to treat them well.  And finally, a good language policy, in my opinion, will make us more knowledgable and more competitive in the globalized economy.  I will talk about this in a later blog http://arcticchill.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/learning-foreignworld-languages-in-the-usa/ .

Thank you for reading.

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