English Only Language for Government?

[Matt Collins]

So my city is considering passing a law making English the mandatory language of the municipal government (with an exclusion for health/safety situations).


Thoughts?

 

[Brian4Liberty]

So my city is considering passing a law making English the mandatory language of the municipal government (with an exclusion for health/safety situations).


Thoughts?

Should save money on translation and printing costs...

 

[Conza88]

So my city is considering passing a law making English the mandatory language of the municipal government (with an exclusion for health/safety situations).


Thoughts?

I totally reject this notion.

The official language should be latin. To run you must be able to speak it. Every document must be in latin, there are to be NO TRANSLATIONS. etc.

Then the populace will really see how fken retarded government is, and the absolute no need for it.

 

[Matt Collins]

Should save money on translation and printing costs...

That is one argument for it.

 

[Minlawc]

I totally reject this notion.

The official language should be latin. To run you must be able to speak it. Every document must be in latin, there are to be NO TRANSLATIONS. etc.

Then the populace will really see how fken retarded government is, and the absolute no need for it.

I wouldn't mind that...

We don't speak English anyway, we speak American.

 

[Kludge]

FFS, just translate my damned sheet music! WTF would you want to write instructions in a dead language for?

 

[Conza88]

FFS, just translate my damned sheet music! WTF would you want to write instructions in a dead language for?

So the instructions cannot be read. Obviously...

What happens then?

Because you can't deal with the government.. you head to the: private sector.

 

[Lord Xar]

naaaaaaaaaaah, no need for it.

You are basing your assumption on a majorities declaration.

I think ENGLISH ONLY most certainly must and should be instantiated in a legal and binding way. Balkanization is splintering up all across the United States because we are no longer considered the "melting pot" as the years go by.

Los Angeles is a cesspool and california is following suit and nobody seems to give a shit that American taxpayers are putting tens of millions of dollars for translators.

this idea of "dual" citizenship and dual whatever totally sucks. I am italian, but I would never be rude enough to speak my language around others and EXPECT my language to ever take precendent over english BUT that is not the case for "other" nationalities.. Being american is NOW considered 'secondary' to 'other' countries. This cannot be tolerated. I am all for representing your own culture, but do it in your own home otherwise.... we loose ourselves.

Be an american first and the thought of english only is most certainly a good idea. If you don't consider yourself an "american" first then you probably do not believe in english only.

 

[Grandson of Liberty]

You are basing your assumption on a majorities declaration.

I think ENGLISH ONLY most certainly must and should be instantiated in a legal and binding way. Balkanization is splintering up all across the United States because we are no longer considered the "melting pot" as the years go by.

Los Angeles is a cesspool and california is following suit and nobody seems to give a shit that American taxpayers are putting tens of millions of dollars for translators.

this idea of "dual" citizenship and dual whatever totally sucks. I am italian, but I would never be rude enough to speak my language around others and EXPECT my language to ever take precendent over english BUT that is not the case for "other" nationalities.. Being american is NOW considered 'secondary' to 'other' countries. This cannot be tolerated. I am all for representing your own culture, but do it in your own home otherwise.... we loose ourselves.

Be an american first and the thought of english only is most certainly a good idea. If you don't consider yourself an "american" first then you probably do not believe in english only.

yup, what he said.

 

[rockandrollsouls]

I'm pretty sure Ron co-sponsored a bill declaring English the official language...check Ontheissues.com I'm sure it's on there.

Update: found it. http://www.issues2000.org/tx/Ron_Paul_Immigration.htm very bottom. Plank 5 seems to be a very logical reason for the bill. Overall it's fairly well thought out.

 

[yongrel]

I would prefer we make Latin the official language of government. Perhaps it would weed out some of the dumber bureaucrats.

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

 

[Joseph Hart]

If you can not speak english, there should only be 1 government form translated. Private Translator listings.

 

[jkr]

1 tounge per nation, anything else is a bonus but we must share a language to survive as a nation

 

[acptulsa]

Oh, you're talking about as opposed to Spanish. I thought this was one of those old fashioned anti-bureaucratese bills for a minute there. Always did like the idea, but they never seemed to work as intended...

 

[NolanLawson]

The thing is, no matter how well-intentioned language reform laws are, they rarely work. It's like trying to legislate against gravity. California made English their official language in the 80's, and you can see how well that worked for them - the percentage of Spanish speakers has been rising anyway. Many government offices in California still issue documents in both Spanish and English, because they prefer to deal with reality rather than government fiat.

So I guess the question is: what's the reality in your city? Does a large part of the population speak a language other than English, monolingually? If so, then making English the only official language is probably a bad idea, since it will just lead to government inefficiency. If everyone in your city already speaks English, though, then it won't hurt, but it won't help either.

Los Angeles is a cesspool and california is following suit and nobody seems to give a shit that American taxpayers are putting tens of millions of dollars for translators.

I see your point, but the alternative seems way more costly. If your city has 30% Russian speakers but the city government only prints documents in English, isn't that government automatically only 70% as effective as it would be if they just hired a translator? The other alternative - re-education of the entire 30% population to speak English - seems even more expensive.

The linguist and humorist Geoffrey Pullum wrote a pretty good article about the English-only movement called "Here Come the Linguistic Fascists." Can't find a link to the article anywhere, but it's in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Eskimo-Vocabulary-Irreverent-Essays-Language/dp/0226685349

 

[jrich4rpaul]

I've actually seen increasing amounts of signs where the main text was in Spanish, with English subtitles.

It's sad, really. I say we all go to another country and try to make them change their language to accomodate us, and see how that goes.

 

[Matt Collins]

I am italian, but I would never be rude enough to speak my language around others and EXPECT my language to ever take precendent over english

And for that I commend you!

 

[brandon]

So my city is considering passing a law making English the mandatory language of the municipal government (with an exclusion for health/safety situations).


Thoughts?

NPR had some coverage of this the other day. Apparently the guy who introduced the legislation introduced it in Japanese. lol

 

[Matt Collins]

I have to vote on this today and I am trying to make up my mind.

 

[Matt Collins]

NPR had some coverage of this the other day. Apparently the guy who introduced the legislation introduced it in Japanese. lol

Yes... Councilman Eric Crafton. I met him at a small townhall meeting 2 months ago while he was discussing this. He was in the Navy and learned Japenese himself when he lived in Japan.

He thought it was lunacy that there was no official language of the government so to make a point he introduced this bill in a language foreign to everyone on the Council... Japanese.