Wednesday November 18, 2009

English in America

By HUSSAINI ABDUL KARIM

The changing fortunes of English in the United States makes interesting reading.

IF not for a cruel twist of fate, Spanish, the tongue of the colonial master of America before the English, could have been America’s national language.

Alas, the English were America’s last colonial power. The position of English was strengthened further when the Americans, together with the Allied Forces, won the Second World War. English thus became the world’s lingua franca.

Most scholars believe that English has always been America’s official language. (Prof J.R. Pole, Foundations of American Independence: 1763-1815, Bobbs-Merrill Co 1972, 18). Actually, that has been true in fact, but not in law – the United States of America does not have a national language.

The founding fathers of the United States were aware of the importance of language in building a nation. Hobbes wrote in 1651 that language was the major organising principle of states and without it “there had been amongst men, neither Commonwealth, nor Society, nor Contract, nor Peace”. (T. Hobbes, Leviathan, 12 (1973 ed.).

As Prof David Simpson puts it: “Language, in other words, is seen from the start as a potential element in constituting a political and cultural unity among the citizens of the new republic; or, if it goes wrong, a means of prescribing or perpetuating disorder.” (David Simpson, The Politics Of American English, 1776-1850, 30 (1986).

Although other countries were establishing language academies to use their languages as instruments for division and rule, America’s founders had different ideas. They felt that all persons should have an understanding of the same language. (Zall, “The American Language: Follow The Founders?” Freedom Review, Vol.26, No.4, July-August 1995, P.2.)

In 1780, John Adams wrote to the President of Congress, arguing that Americans should “force their language into general use.” (John Adams, The Works Of John Adams, Vol.7, p.249 (Charles Francis Adams ed., 1852).

Having just fought a war against the English, however, the Founders were reluctant to declare English the official language.

Historically, the American government has operated in English. On Jan 13, 1795, the United States House of Representatives defeated a bill to print 3,000 sets of the federal laws in German “for the accommodation of such German citizens of the United States, as do not understand the English language.” (4 Annals Of The Congress Of The United States, 1082.)

The decisive vote against bilingual publication was cast by the first Speaker of the House, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, a German-American from Pennsylvania, then the state with the largest German population. (Baron, The English-Only Question, 1990, 88.)

This close congressional vote was apparently the source of myths that German almost became the official language of the United States.

Every year from 1843 to 1847 Congress voted against printing copies of the President’s annual message in Low German, German or French. (Source: Id.)

The American government did not emphasise any particular language until the last century. The changing view towards English was reflected in President Theodore Roosevelt’s statement in 1914: “We have room for but one language in this country, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house.”

At the turn of the century, several states banned the teaching of foreign languages in private schools and homes.

However, the US Supreme Court struck down restrictions on private language education in 1923 in Meyer v Nebraska, 262 US 390 (1923). The suit was based upon an act relating to the teaching of foreign languages in the state of Nebraska, which said: “No person, individually or as a teacher, shall, in any private, denominational, parochial or public school, teach any subject to any person in any language than the English language.”

In the 1970s, the federal government began requiring languages other than English. In 1974, the Supreme Court declared that federal civil rights laws required schools to provide special educational assistance to students with limited English-language skills in Lau v Nichols, 414 US 563 (1974).

In 1975, Congress required the use of bilingual voting materials in elections across the country. Also in 1975, the Federal Department of Education proposed regulations requiring schools to use multicultural and multilingual instruction, rather than intensive English language training. The regulations, never finalised, were imposed on schools 500 times before the incoming Reagan Administration withdrew them.

In 1981, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decided that employers could not require workers to speak English on the job. Federal courts have held that the EEOC’s rule was illegal in Garcia v Spun-Steak Co, 998 F.2d 1480 (9th Cir 1993), cert denied, 114 S.Ct. 2726 (1994).

In response, grassroots organisations were formed to promote English as the official language of the federal and state governments. The late US Senator S.I. Hayakawa was the founder of the “Official English movement.” In 1981, Sen Hayakawa, an immigrant, college president and renowned semanticist, proposed an amendment to the US Constitution to declare English the official language. (Chavez, Out Of The Barrio, P.87-89.)

Sen Hayakawa also convinced the US Senate to adopt a resolution declaring that English should be the official language of the United States. (Source: Congressional Record (daily ed.) June 20, 1984.)

In part two of his article, Hussaini will look at the differences between British and American English.