Of course that was roughly 100 years or so after the founding when both of those ethnic groups became large blocs...
Oh, certainly. I was just curious as to from whence the above claim arose--I'm totally unaware of when any such a concensus decision would have been made. Certainly by far the majority of the early colonists were English so I have some difficulty in thinking when there would even have been the discussion.
When I was in school we were taught that English had its roots in the Germanic languages of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who displaced the earlier Celtic populations pushing them (and their languages) back into Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. The English words with Latin origins almost all came in with the Norman French.
English is not a Romance Language. It is a Germanic language with Romance influences.
many of them were dutch- my ancestors included- and while the dutch do disagree, often very strenuously- they really are part of that demographic that we here today call "german"
But certainly not a majority (or even close) overall...
We's got a bunch of them (and Russians as well) around here, too...
By a single vote. GWB won 5 to 4.
You're missing the point. One has to consider cost vs consequence. Consider, for example, if it would be preferable to adopt an English-only approach to educate the Vietnamese immigrant community about asian bird flue. The short term consequences of such an approach might be limited to a few dead immigrants, a cost I daresay most English-only advocates would find acceptable since neither they nor anyone they know, or at rate care about would be paying it. The long term cost could easily be tens of millions of dead Americans without regard to what language they spoke.
It is easy to say , "Well of course we'll make exceptions when it's THAT important." But the fact is that the fewer exceptions one makes, the harder it becomes to make any at all.
This is usual Collectivist dreck of "the good of the group demands it" and it is bogus. It presumes some natural right of citizens or immigrants to travel anywhere they wish without any thought to the risk they bring to other citizens. As a general matter, people *ought* to be free to do pretty much anything they like so long as they do not harm others thereby. But the limit to this freedom is reached when a person's action harms others or places them at risk. The more direct solution has nothing to do with language at all. When faced with the treat of, say, Asian bird flu, disallow travel to and from the countries in question.
On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 17:50:05 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Patrick Conroy quickly quoth:
Spanish or Chinese (probably Mandarin). Hold on, folks. we're due for a large change RSN. Gotcher BOB? (Bug-out bag, a thing which would have saved most of the folks in the evacuations lately but which nobody had, 'cept the Survivalists in the group.)
Google it and MAKE ONE TOMORROW if you don't already have one. One per person. Just Do It!
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Crimony, that doesn't seem to relate at all to what I wrote.
Well, I checked. It turns out what I had read last year was an urban legend of sorts. The confusion was over a proposal to translate laws into German for German-speaking Americans. It was overturned by the speaker. The "official language" vote never happened.
Interesting that this legend was repeated in the "get out the vote" stuff that preceded the last US federal election. That's when I saw it. I stand corrected.
Mike
I never claimed they were a majority - they are the largest group.
In July, China displaced Canada as USA's largest trading partner. First time that Canada has not been the first in a long time. Brush up on your Chinese. And keep on beating up on the Cubans - communism must be stopped!
Mike
of Americans with German ancestors being a majority, or at least more numerous than any other single cultural group."
You provided the cite. 15.2% is the largest percentage.
Can't find any 200 year old figures, but that was just after the great Scots-Irish migration, so I'm doubtful. Possible, though, because you're working with much smaller figures overall.
What I was trying say (apparently not well) is that "emergency situations" don't necessarily call for a change of language to be remedied. You can often fix such problems with a change of policy - say, restricting travel to places that pose a health threat to our country. There may well be cases where the government needs to operate in other languages - for example when collecting intelligence about Islamterrorism. But the day-to-day operation of government for the most part can (and should) be conducted in English.
Moreover, it is a perfectly reasonable expectation that, if you want to live here, you're going to have to deal with an English-speaking/writing government. I have lived in 3 countries and traveled to a dozen more on business and holidays. I never once found another non-English speaking country where their *government* went out of their way to accomodate my native tongue (though private businesses did so regularly in the interest of improving commerce). For instance, I have a friend here in the US who inherited property in Germany upon the death of a spouse. The German authorities mailed notification about the legal matters surrounding the transfer of title ... in *German* (as they properly should). My friend had to get it translated. This is the norm in the overwhelming majority of non-English speaking nations, but we somehow seem to think it's a Bad Thing.
The sole exception to this is that many street and highway signs around the world are signed in both the local language AND ... *English* in recognition of the fact that English has become the de fact standard for conducting international business. (Saints Be Praised for that. You oughtta try reading a blueprint written in German. It is a study in word concatentation that dazzles the mind. ;) If the whole rest of the developed (and some of the less developed) world has figured out that English is the way to do business, why should we - the English speaking nations of the world - do anything less?
You still danced around what he wrote and didn't address it at all. Please go back and read his post and reply based on what you read, not what you THINK he wrote.
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Well, I think it did address what was written--the point all along has been to prohibit use of any language other than English. Fred took the normal route of creating a false diversion to justify another reaction.
I tried to find something similar for the Colonial period but a quick search didn't find it. I would think otherwise, but I might be wrong.
Given the long border w/ Mexico and the proximity to the South American continent, combined w/ the gross dissimilarity of Asiatic tongues to English, I'd guess on Spanish as the prime candidate...
Replace 'justify' with 'provoke' and I think you have your answer.
Mr Daneliuk took that opportunity to make it clear that his preference was for English-only regardless of the cost.
Not my reading...
ITYM Cuban tobacco and sugar must be kept off the US market.
The embargo, like economic sanctions in general, hurts only those people in Cuba who don't give a damn about Communism because they have the least power to do anything about it.
Free trade with Cuba would put Cuban communism in direct competition with American capitalism. Whom do you think would win then?
No - I took the opportunity to proclaim that "it will cost more if you don't embrace multilingualism" is false in its premises and thus false in conclusion.
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