I’ve already talked about English being the official language of America (see this, this, and this). It should be clear from the posts that I support a national, official language and the subsequent requirements that places on education, immigration, and other aspects of society. I want to clarify and augment my previously presented point of view.
Despite every reason to believe from those discussions something quite to the contrary, I am not so jingoistically prejudiced that I do not hold room in my brain for more than one national language. In fact, one might easily and rightfully claim that any American chauvinist would, by definition, be required to support vast and unimaginable diversity. The United States was founded on that very idea. In this sense, what I long for is a legal, federal, required, national language composition. English would be a compulsory ingredient.
Because the vast majority of Americans speaks the language, all citizens should be functionally literate with the tongue, including being able to process the language in both written and verbal form, and doing so comparable to at least a sixth-grade level. But let’s not be so daft as to assume I advocate shielding Americans from having to learn more than one language. In fact, especially in light of my own languished linguistic legerdemain, obviously I readily advocate the educational requirement that all children learn at least two, preferably three languages before receiving a diploma. Many were the times when I would ponder our apparent lack of interest in this kind of cultural diversity and understanding. In that sense, we have always been a xenophobic nation that shunned the very multiculturalism upon which the United States was built. Now would be a great time to change that through a national language initiative.
Standardize the language requirements for all citizens and immigrants with that spoken by almost all Americans and in which we conduct all of the people’s business. Add to that the modification of our national education requirements to include a much expanded lingual stipulation.
Still, I see no critical need for more than one national language. Educational requirements are quite different from citizenship requirements. While the two should remain at least somewhat complementary, neither should directly equal the other for obvious reasons. There is no doubt almost all Americans passably speak English already. There is no doubt our entire infrastructure rests on the language. Let that be the required vernacular. While we’re meddling with the situation, let us also endorse requiring students to expand their language capacities in order to graduate high school.
After all, both items happen throughout the world right now without significantly increasing the incidence of exploding heads among those same populations.
