Spanish, not English, should be the official language of the United States

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Hmm, I think the only true Americans, the American Indian should have at least some input here. After all when all other codes had been broken during WW2 IT was the American Indian language that saved our English speaking arsses.

Good point.

Good thing the white man exterminated the natives to the point they did or else you couldnt use a native language as code any more than you can use english as code today.

Look for the bright side of life.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Hmm, I think the only true Americans, the American Indian should have at least some input here. After all when all other codes had been broken during WW2 IT was the American Indian language that saved our English speaking arsses.

Good point.

Good thing the white man exterminated the natives to the point they did or else you couldnt use a native language as code any more than you can use english as code today.

Look for the bright side of life.

You know me, I'm all about the sunshine.

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

:lol:

You know me, I'm all about the sunshine.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Hmm, I think the only true Americans, the American Indian should have at least some input here. After all when all other codes had been broken during WW2 IT was the American Indian language that saved our English speaking arsses.

Good point.

Good thing the white man exterminated the natives to the point they did or else you couldnt use a native language as code any more than you can use english as code today.

Look for the bright side of life.

You know me, I'm all about the sunshine.

You make raisins in the sun.

[Sister Fracas 5]

FYI, the United States does NOT have an official language.

ummm, yes...however, we are discussing whether is SHOULD

[sparkofcreation 0]

Good thing the white man exterminated the natives to the point they did or else you couldnt use a native language as code any more than you can use english as code today.

I'm sure the Navajo interpreter in the office next to mine will be happy to know she's been talking to herself all these years in court when she thought she was talking to a Navajo-speaker.

Edited January 29, 2008 by sparkofcreation

[sj5 4]

jeeez whats wrong with America if Spanish will be the official language?

[JVKn'CVO 11]

With globalization and international business and stuff, I think the world one day will speak a common language. I used to think english would be that language. But that's like decades down the road, let's see what happens to that prediction.

Anyone remember the esperanto project, for a common world-language?

Saludos,

Caro

[Marilyn. 340]

With globalization and international business and stuff, I think the world one day will speak a common language. I used to think english would be that language. But that's like decades down the road, let's see what happens to that prediction.

Anyone remember the esperanto project, for a common world-language?

Saludos,

Caro

maybe it will be Chinese.... that is the language spoken by the magority of the population of Earth...

Summer Institute for Linguistics (SIL) Ethnologue Survey (1999)

1. Chinese* (937,132,000)

2. Spanish (332,000,000)

3. English (322,000,000)

4. Bengali (189,000,000)

5. Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)

6. Arabic* (174,950,000)

7. Portuguese (170,000,000)

8. Russian (170,000,000)

9. Japanese (125,000,000)

10. German (98,000,000)

11. French* (79,572,000)

Dr. Bernard Comrie’s article for the Encarta Encyclopedia (1998):

1. Mandarin Chinese (836 million)

2. Hindi (333 million)

3. Spanish (332 million)

4. English (322 million)

5. Bengali (189 million)

6. Arabic (186 million)

7. Russian (170 million)

8. Portuguese (170 million)

9. Japanese (125 million)

10. German (98 million)

11. French (72 million)

George Weber’s article “Top Languages: The World’s 10 Most Influential Languages” in Language Today (Vol. 2, Dec 1997):

1. Mandarin Chinese (1.1 billion)

2. English (330 million)

3. Spanish (300 million)

4. Hindi/Urdu (250 million)

5. Arabic (200 million)

6. Bengali (185 million)

7. Portuguese (160 million)

8. Russian (160 million)

9. Japanese (125 million)

10. German (100 million)

11. Punjabi (90 million)

12. Javanese (80 million)

13. French (75 million)

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

A plurality, not a majority.

[Alex+R 0]

I don't think those statistics can be correct. There are 180,000,000 people in Brazil alone, and the population hasn't grown 10 million since 1999, and there aren't many in Brazil who don't speak Portuguese. That's not counting Portugal and all the African countries that speak it. Sooooooooo

[Jenn! 918]

I don't think those statistics can be correct. There are 180,000,000 people in Brazil alone, and the population hasn't grown 10 million since 1999, and there aren't many in Brazil who don't speak Portuguese. That's not counting Portugal and all the African countries that speak it. Sooooooooo

According to Wikipedia, Portuguese is 6th with 177.5 M:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnologue_li...poken_languages

ETA: Supposedly this counts first language speakers only. Are there Brazilians whose first language is not Portuguese even though they speak Portuguese as a second language?

Edited January 29, 2008 by Jenn!

[Alex+R 0]

Looks like it's time to do a new count.

[Dan J 277]

The US was formed by people speaking many languages. Eventually English emerged as the dominant language, but many people held on to the language of their ancestors. Even today, its not hard to find people in Swedish communities fluent in Swedish, or otherwise.

In my opinion, we shouldn't make English an official language. Let the best languages win.

Its likely the language in the future wont really be a language that we know today, and much more likely to be a language that takes different parts of the most dominant languages. After all, English itself has a lot of words borrowed from other languages.

[~krakatoa~ 27]

Slightly off-topic, what's the Spanish word for electrons? Hence, I voted against it.

Edited January 30, 2008 by krakatoa