Why isn't English the OFFICIAL language in the United States?

I asked before and I got disgusting answers, so I'm asking again. Why isn't English the OFFICIAL language of the United States? France has French, Brazil has Brazilian Portuguese, Italy has Italian, Japan has Japanese, so doesn't the USA have English?





The pot-growing slave-owning white men that started this country spoke English. The native americans, who were here first, learned it. The slaves learned it. Immigrants from Europe learned it. All of a sudden, we have people that cannot or will not learn it.





It is an insult to have to sit on the phone and not only deal with the IVR instead of a human, but to hear everything repeated in another language. It's a double insult to go to CVS and it says "farmacia" in large red letters instead of "pharmacy". This is America. No one asked anyone to come here, so if you are here, you should learn our language, not the other way around.





If half of America moved to any country that I named earlier, do you think you would hear "for English, press 9"? Absolutely not (especially in the case of France).





And also, before you reply, this question is for people who are of age: those who PAY TAXES or HAVE CHILDREN and not little ideological adolescents who still watch MTV/MTV2/MTVU/MTV3. You guys don't count just yet. Think about the tax money being spent to accommodate non-citizens. What will you do when they start instructing your children in an non-English language? What will you do when you are told that you cannot have a job because you don't speak another language EVEN THOUGH you were born here, you were raised here and you've spent all your life here and may have even put your life on the line for the country?





Think hard about that, and spare me the ignorant answers. This might be a "nation of immigrants", but virtually all of them, until recently, assimilated and learned English. We have a lot of Chinese and Jews here, and I hardly ever see signs in Chinese or Hebrew or Yiddish unless I'm in that cultural enclave of town.|||All kidding aside, I am for English Only Language especially at the Government level. I am immigrant from another country and I had to learn English, and I did.


I am with you. Let's start a political movement so that at the government level English is the only language.|||mexicans|||Because we have not grown up yet. Look at the Republicans they are now more than ever acting like


unruly kids. How could they make any intelligent decision benefiting the country?|||Hey, at least we have tax forms in Spanish for them. Get over it.|||Because our politicions are stupid|||IDK


I thought it was at 1st but when i learned that we dont have one i guess it wasnt meant to be|||Who asked all the English people to go there? Certainly not the native Americans, who have been speaking native American languages for thousands of years before white people came and screwed everything up for them.





English might be made AN official language. To be made THE official language is to (continue to) deny native rights.|||Racists hate people of a different race. Sexists discriminate againt the opposite sex. Budhists hate budha...wait, that one might be backwards. What do you call it when someone hates others for the language they speak? A linguist? Yes, youre a linguist. But you also have some agism going on too because if youre not a certain age then "you dont count" in your world. I had to try to be funny rather than argue your points because a wise man told me, "Dont argue with fools, cuz people from a distance cant tell who is who."|||NONE of your whiney complaints would be solved by making English the official language.





There would still be some residents who have a foreign language as their first language.





The idea is nothing but intolerance and xenophobia at its core.





You want everyone to be fluid in English a day after they arrive?


How long would you allow someone to be here without knowing English?





Here in the US, we speak many languages and WE ALWAYS HAVE.





Colonies - English, French, Dutch, etc.


Florida, Texas and the American Southwest - many SPANISH speakers the very day states joined the Union. In fact, New Mexico's Constitution is BILINGUAL (gasp)





We've had newspapers in non-English. Here in Milwaukee, our large German population was served by a German language newspaper. SO WHAT?





So what would "official English " do? Outlaw speaking another language? Outlaw printing in other languages? Outlaw companies from doing those multi-lingual telephone sysytems? Outlaw foreign language instruction?





What paranoic nonsense!





Tell you what, bigot... YOU come up with the funding to send each and every foreign resident to English classes then we'll talk.





Gee, we're going to spend a great of time and money changing all the names of States, Cities, Parks, Rivers, etc to ENGLISH words.





No more North and South DAKOTAS, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc (Native American word). Gotta change Los Angeles, San Antonio, Las Vegas (all evil Spanish words). Say bye-bye to St Louis, Juneau, San Francisco, Delaware, Dubuque IA, Louisiana, etc ( from awful FRENCE language).





And how many more ????





Then there's foreign words WE use all the time ....





deja vu? BANNED


ala mode? BANNED


bodega? BANNED


chorizo? BANNED





Taco Bell.... GONE





Tell you what, bigot... YOU come up with the funding to send each and every foreign resident to English classes then we'll talk.|||You already know all the possible answers someone could give you. You came on here for attention. Nothing will be solved by bringing this up. What is wrong with you?



"Waaaah, I'm offended that I see other languages on packages sometimes. I hate other languages! I know! I'll go waste my goddamn time on Yahoo Answers and pick fights with people because of it! Then I'll argue with them about how stupid they are! Hahaha I'm so great. Oh, and I'll act superior by throwing in that I'm a responsible member of society who pays taxes too, that'll make up for all those times I was called 'kid' while playing Runescape!"|||English IS the official language but, especially when the government wants something from you, they make sure that you understand the rules, even if they have to translate them into umpty-leven languages to do so.





Did you hear about the foofoorah raised when Pat's Steaks (a Philadelphia landmark) posted a sign telling customers to order in English? Not that people who didn't know


English would be able to read the sign . . . . Pat's personnel do help people who do have trouble with the language, though. But they demand that the customers at least try, rather than expecting the cashiers to be multilingual.|||Maybe because many of the leading Teapublicans such as John I-Have-A-Boehner-For-Wall-Street and Michele Can-I-Off-Obama-Bachmann are German and would rather have Americans speak the language of 'der beloved Fuhrer?'

Seriouslly, when the notion of an official language came up way back in 1789 it was pretty much split between German %26amp; English, back then it was decided to let America speak the language that was most conveneint and as with most nations on Earth it was discovered that flaws %26amp;all English works best. China might speak Chinese, Franch French, and Brazil Brazilian Portoguese, but when shove comes to push in any nation most likely English will be used to bridge the gap.

As for CVC, Jack in the Box and other major corporations - - - they want to make MONEY if a huge chunk of their customers need instructions in Spanish so be it, heck if enough Russians lived here they would have Russian language prompts as well.

A final note: though rarely explained, on Star Trek they has an Intergalatic Language translator implanted near their inner ear and it worked great: no matter what alieans Kirk/Spock/McCoy/Chekov/Scotty/Uhura/Sul鈥?encountered they 'seemed' to be 'spickin' English.

Oh, and finally Desi spoke SpangGrish and everyone understood him perfectly.



Peace////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\|||why do you sound like such of an extremest? if you don't like how things are run here, MOVE! so what if you walk into a store and it says "farmacia" instead of pharmacy? its just how it is. there's plenty of other country's that have signs for English speaking people as well as signs for people that are from there. and why do you hate on mtv and public schools? are they also not good enough for you? and I'm guessing I'm one of those "adolescents" you were talking about for stating my opinion of you. but before i end one thing i agree with you is if someone foreign is going to live here, they need to learn English.|||I hope you get robed by someone who speaks spanish.