Would you support a constitutional amendment establishing English as the official language of the United States?

Why or Why not?

It is the language the Country was founded under and should be the acknowledged official language of the Country.

However I also support that all schools 1-8 should teach Spanish as a mandatory second language. And when and if Hispanics become the majority that Spanish be added as an official language.

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-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

I've read estimates that it costs several billion dollars every year to support multiple language versions of government forms and documents. That alone is a pretty good reason to establish an official language.

I voted No.

Language is a living and vibrant form of human communication.

An example is when we have a war. Many foreign language words of the country were fought with become part of our english language.

The English language is dynamic. In that different words are incorporated and disguarded in an almost Darwin like process.

To legislate that English be the official language would slow or stop this process and inhibit one of the greatest features of the English language.

I voted yes because a common language gives coherence to a common nation.

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No one flamed you. See how easy that is?

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Wow!! I am starting to feel warm all over!!!!

That probably just means you pissed yourself again.

Wow! I agree with you on something!

Totally amazing!!! Are we Friends now??


While working on my BA in Sociology during college. I took a course in Linguistics.

That's where I came across the works of Benjamin Whorf. He is the modern founder of contempary linguistics. His work led to the "Whorfian Hypothesis". Which made the case that language is the instrument that shapes our reality and ideas. That some languages by their very essence either constrict our thoughts and awareness. While other languages, by their very nature, expand our ability to visualize and explore new ideas. That language shapes our culture and thought process.

If interested, check out this and other sites on the subject: www.joshmanning.com/friends/whorf.htm

Simple point, we don't speak English, we speak American English. Not to mention all the dialects that exist. To make it 'official' at least 80% of the country would have to learn it still.

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Friends??

Whoa!!!

But thanks for the link. I took a course in linguistics once also. Fascinating stuff!

A band-aid measure.

The real fix is to vote in white as the official RACE of the United States.

Get that straightened out, everything else fixes itself.

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Does anyone think it's weird that the two biggest goals of our time are "tolerance" and "zero tolerance"?

I disagree. I have no problems with a mandatory second language, but who says it has to be spanish? Let's face it, you're going to go further in life if you speak Japanese or German or Chinese or even Russian, than if you speak Spanish.