For English teachers & language experts:Why isn't English considered the official language of the U.S?

Question

When I checked U.S. Olympic team stats on the Yahoo!Sports web site every night during the latest Summer Olympics,I noticed that the U.S. had no official language listed,whereas other countries had official languages listed.

Why is that?Why can't English be the official language of the U.S.?

Answer 1

As another user mentioned, the Constitution of the United States does not specify an official language, although the working language of the Federal government is English. English is the "de facto" official language of the United States--that is, although there is no law that states the official language, the fact that the majority of the population of the United States speaks English makes English an 'official' language. Not 'official' in a sense of a law or decree, but 'official' in a sense of current practices.



The declaration of an official language is left to the states. Most states only have English as an official language. Some states have 2 official languages, like New Mexico (English and Spanish), Louisiana (English and French), Hawai'i (English and Hawai'ian) and some more.



There is really no point in declaring an "official" language--everyone is free to speak whatever language they'd like.

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edit: I probably should have specified that New Mexico and Louisiana's 'official' languages are de facto as well--there's no law stating that those languages are official...

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What curious_lalalala said is right. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that in (informal) environments everyone is going to speak whatever language they want, regardless of any language having an official status.



The thing that upsets many Americans is the fact that English's understood (de facto) official status in the public sectors seems threatened. And being reminded of the fact that there is no legal (de jure) official language (especially by immigrants) only angers people more.



Does English need to be declared official in order to be respected as the lingua franca of the nation? If that's the case, then does every aspect of culture need to be written down and declared official? Some seem to think that since these aren't declared official by law, they are up for consideration/change.

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A very good point! While a great amount of the population has a problem with the current situation, there is relatively little being done to remedy any "issues" there may be. The American government has taken a fairly laissez-faire approach to languages in the US--whatever bills to make English official failed and never made it to law.

Answer 2

We already have a defacto national language, but it does not have "official" status (i.e. there's no federal law declaring English to be the official language of the US).



There's no need to do this. It's fine leaving it up to the individual states to decide. By the way, Hawaii is probably the only state in the union to have two official languages: English and Hawaiian (State Constitution - Article 15, Section 4). Puerto Rico, as a US commonwealth, has both Spanish and English as official languages. The US territories of Guam and American Samoa also have two official languages (Guam=English and Chamorro) (Amer. Samoa=English and Samoan)



The other answers stating that states like New Mexico and Louisiana have two official languages are incorrect. Given their historical ties to non-English speaking countries, their state constitutions generally protect linguistic diversity without declaring "official" languages. By the way, as recently as 2005, the Louisiana Legislature easily passed a resolution (HCR 19) asking the US Congress to enact legislation declaring English as the official language for the entire nation. The resolution's primary sponsor: Robert Faucheux. Go figure.

Answer 3

The people of Louisiana should be ashamed...but they've been trying to eradicate the French Language from their state for decades now, anyway.



''Everyone is free to speak whatever language they'd like.''



It would be perfect if every American thought so, but the fact of the matter is that not everyone in the United States does have this viewpoint. You hear many people complain about some long-time immigrants or newcomers that do not speak a word of English, and how it upsets them, is unacceptable, etc. That is when having English as THE official language of the United States would ''help'' matters. Right now, since there is no official language constitutionally, no American has the right to complain about such-and-such person not speaking English nor do they have the right to FORCE anyone to speak it. So I'm sorry, but if English doesn't need ''an official stamp of approval'', then stop complaining about people not speaking it in your country.



So why? To me the argument of ''we have a myriad of languages spoken here'' is irrelevant when Americans keep saying ''the majority of people speak English'', one nullifies the other. There is a myriad of languages spoken in Canada as well, surely not as many, but proportionally you could compare, and yet we've narrowed down our official languages to the two most spoken ones.



If the U.S. ever had to make a choice, I would go for English AND Spanish, join the bilingual family!



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edit: Andrew: No, not every cultural aspect needs to be written down and made official, but language embodying the corner stone of one's culture and to a larger extent, of one's civilization, it seems crucial to me that a language be protected, if not the whole culture or society identifying itself to it may fall as a consequence.



Americans have never really grasped the importance of language in their society, being speakers of the world's lingua frinca (along with the Brits), which partly explains their low interest in learning foreign languages. Language, however, is everything.

Answer 4

Well look at how many nationalities we have now. I mean Spanish is almost taking over the U.S. I would say there will be two official languages (english and spanish). In certain areas there would be more people speaking arabic, or something else, but as a whole the U.S. is turning into (english with spanish translations on everything).

Answer 5

We'd never agree on what the official language should be because of the myriad languages spoken here. It's unnecessary. English is the predominant language. It doesn't need an official stamp of approval.

Answer 6

No official language is mentioned or contemplated in the Constitution.