Around the country we are seeing repeated assaults on folks who are not speaking English. I felt it was time to investigate the truth about language in the United States.
Did you know The United States has no official language, never has probably never will? Really! Thirty States do have statutes declaring American English to be the official language of the state. (I bet some of those states don’t know that the state had some other dominate language in its history.) Other states have multiple official languages including Louisiana which offers services and documents in French, as does New Mexico in Spanish. Hawaiian, although having few native speakers, is an official language along with English of the state of Hawaii. Alaska recognizes English and twenty Native languages as official. Speaking of Native languages there are approximately 130 Native American languages being spoken at home in Our Country today.
‘Contrary to what some Americans seem to believe, the United States historically has been a polyglot nation containing a diverse array of languages. At the time of independence, non-English European immigrants made up one quarter of the population and in Pennsylvania two-fifths of the population spoke German. ‘es ist alles gut’ In addition, an unknown but presumably significant share of the new nation’s inhabitants spoke an American Indian or African language, suggesting that perhaps a third or more of all Americans spoke a language other than English.’ (Rubén G. Rumbaut and Douglas S. Massey)
The Louisiana Purchase acquired from France in 1803 contained land that forms present day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; the portion of Minnesota west of the Mississippi River; a large portion of North Dakota; a large portion of South Dakota; the northeastern section of New Mexico; the northern portion of Texas; the area of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; Louisiana west of the Mississippi River (plus New Orleans). That is a lot of French being spoken. ‘c’est parfait’
The Texas Annexation in 1845 brought the Republic of Texas (which had seceded from Mexico) into the language mix of America. The Mexican Session in 1848 included territory that now encompasses California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, about half of New Mexico, about a quarter of Colorado, and a small section of Wyoming. Spanish was the dominate language of this third largest land acquisition by the United States. ‘todo está bien’
Don’t forget the Italians. Between 1880 and 1924, more than four million Italians immigrated to the United States, half of them between 1900 and 1910 alone —the majority fleeing grinding rural poverty in Southern Italy and Sicily. Today, Americans of Italian ancestry are the nation’s fifth-largest ethnic group. My neighborhood near Pittsburgh in my junior high years (early 60s) was predominately Italian. I heard Italian being spoken on front porches every time I walked down the street. ‘va tutto bene’
Today American English is spoken at home by 237.8 million people making it the language most used by Americans. The second most used language is Spanish spoken by 40.5 million Americans.
The original language of the territory we call The United States began with those Native tongues mentioned above as well as others. A hodgepodge of languages overlapped, dominated and receded upon the arrival of Europeans to the continent. At one time or other New York spoke Dutch ‘het is al goed’, Pennsylvania spoke German, Florida was 100% Spanish, Louisiana was French. Of course, there are all the African languages spoken by folks who didn’t want to come to this country. ‘ni njema’ The Asian immigrant influx added additional languages to our spoken cacophony. ‘Daijōbudayo’ We have always been a hodgepodge of languages in this country.
Did you know at Gettysburg during the Civil War interpreters were needed to translate the English commands to the German troops from Pennsylvania?
Did you know in the days after the D-Day landings American troops were able to talk fluently with German and Polish POWs because the Americans were from families that had recently immigrated to The United States?
Did you know Navajo soldiers in the Pacific during World War II used their native tongue to confuse Japanese code breakers? ‘hózhǫ́’
Did you know there is a demand for multi-lingual speakers in government and tourism?
As in most of what makes us great we have a diversity of language in our country. It is our diversity that gives us an edge over the rest of the world.
I am writing this article as one who nearly flunked French in High School and did flunk Spanish in college. Once I grew up I realized my mistake of not investing a little effort to become bilingual in this large and diverse world we share with others. Today, I can speak four languages. Yes, I can ask for a beer in German, Spanish, Norwegian and English. I also, can ask ‘Where is the bathroom!
Let’s celebrate our diversity. It’s all good.