Been thinking about this a little more in light of persiflage’s comment, reproduced here to save everyone from doing a back search :
“English needs to be the official language of the United States, that is, the ONLY official language of Government and the Law. Why? Because there simply is no 100% reliable translation between the US laws, and say, romance languages like Spanish or Italian, or eastern languages like Hindi or Chinese that will mean the same thing in both languages. A non-English language could not possibly convey the historical connotations and nuances of the English words in our laws, based as they are on English Common Law and its centuries-long history. We must unify around a common language of Government and the Law. That it must be English is only common sense.”
I think persiflage has hit on something important. English is not just a common language for Americans that could, in theory, be any other common language. It is a language which contains our history as a country. It contains the legal language on which our institutions rest, the language of a literature which reflects our understandings of human relationships, a language of poetry extending from the universities to the streets. It is, in a very deep way, who we are.
Those of us who understand this are insisting that immigrants absorb this language and become one of us. Sure, they will bring things with them, including their ancestral languages, that will be absorbed into who we are and in some manner change us all. But to refuse to accept English is to refuse to become an American.
If you don’t want to become an American, what are you doing in America?
I think this is at the core of the anti-illegal sentiment in this country. We accept immigrants who want to become Americans, and who learn to speak our language, observe our customs and laws.
We reject those who do not accept our laws, do not want to learn our language, and who are, in essence, coming here with their bodies but leaving their souls at home.
The failure to learn English is pretty good evidence that someone does not want to become an American. And the people who don’t think that English should be our common language are either deeply ignorant of what language means, or deliberately putting political ends above the common good.
