For most Americans, English is a very simple and prominent thing. It is there when we speak to a friend about weekend plans. It is there when we listen to most songs by American artists, despite how odd they may sound. It is even there when we read these blog posts by our fellow peers. The fact that we are so used to our own language is the real reason why we are barely aware of how ridiculous it is.
The English language came to be with the invasion of Britain during the 5th century by three Germanic tribes: the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. During this time, a Celtic language was actually spoken, but the tribes pushed those speakers away to what is now known as Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. With influence from the tribes, a new language was developed and was known as Old English (450-1100 AD).
Then, in 1066, the Normans came and took over England, bringing along a type of French that only the upper class spoke, while the lower class still spoke English. Then finally, in the 14th century, English became the dominate once again, but French words became mixed in. This came to be known as Middle English (1100-1500).
And finally, Modern English, which is broken up into Early (1500-1800) and Late (1800-Present). Due to the Renaissance of Classical learning and the invention of printing, English needed to standardize. And so, as more phrases were added and more things were changed, the first English dictionary was printed. In comparison to each other, the Early and Late were only separated by vocabulary.
The thing is, for a language that is made up of many phonetic languages, English is anything but. If a word is phonetic, you can look at it and know how to say it. This is not always the case with English. For example, look at the titled word "Ghoti." According to George Bernard Shaw, a famous Irish writer, the correct pronunciation of "Ghoti" would be "Fish." How could this be? Simple: take the gh from "enough", the o from "women", and the ti from "nation."
I just find it interesting how some people get so upset at the fact that not all immigrants wish to learn such a language without regarding just how difficult it is. As well as how, though we are a nation of immigrants, we are constantly trying to make English law. Though I understand how out of place this may seem, what are your thoughts on English as a language? Do you agree that an "English Only" Law should be passed, though we are made up of so many other cultures, both in people and language?
English is supposedly one of the hardest languages to learn. I can't speak any other languages and would be in allot of trouble if i had to learn. I would disagree with a law that required you to know English. I do however feel everyone should attempt to learn.
ReplyDeleteI agree entirely on what Peter says too. English is the only language that I have learned so far that I am still not entirely sure how to work with it. It is also the only language I know where vowels can change like the colors of a leaf. No matter how many times I take a grammar or English class I will still have problems on how the English language works into what field I am majoring in. For the most part I will be using other languages because most choral arranged music is either Latin, French, Italian, or German. I will need it to translate other language texts but it still seems strange that you can pronounce the letter "A" in so many different ways in the English language. Knowing that English is more diverse than many think makes perfect sense to why it's the hardest language to learn.
ReplyDeleteI do not really like the fact that people are being forced to learn english. I understand that english is the most common language but in the end we are a nation of immigrants. My family speaks both english and spanish, so I am fluent in both. I see my family, primarily my grandmother and the older members of my family, trying to speak english when spanish is their first language. They have difficulty pronouncing words and using grammar correctly. English is a much more complex language than we may think because we were born and raised already speaking it. For someone who has to learn the language is a second language have much more difficulty and I see that in my family. I help as much as i can to translate but it is much more difficult to speak english than what people think.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for America's grandeur is the culmination of individuals from different cultures that all desire something more. Those that come to the U.S. find a haven, somewhere where they are ideally supposed to be safe from religious persecution, oppression, and the similar effects from economic and political corruption. Almost all Americans have roots from foreign ground. America is wonderful, because these differences have made us strong and brought us to be the most prosperous country and the place where the highest standard of living can be found. Along with these differences, comes different languages. This cannot be controlled, if we are going to allow immigration, we have to be tolerant and even accepting of the voices of our citizens. Yes, English is prominent, but we also have to consider the difficulty of the language. English has a reputation of being an extremely hard language to learn and then use correctly. Most people who are born and raised in America can still not communicate correctly in proper English. I do not think the English Only law should be passed. We as Americans should be understanding of our fellow Americans.
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ReplyDeleteThe English language is very hard to learn. I help teach Spanish-Speakers from Quincy learn the English language at my church. This past Sunday, the issue came up of how difficult it is for them to learn the language. Many pick up the pronunciation very well, however many do not, but we help in their pronunciation and assist in them learning English. This being said, I do not agree with an "English only" law. This is unconstitutional in my opinion. People have the freedom of speech and I interpret this to include the freedom of the type of language you use to speak. However I do think that if you come to a country in which the nation's language is English, you should know that language or learn to speak it in order to communicate among the people of the country and to thrive living in the country so I commend the Spanish-speakers for learning English (and anyone here in America that speaks another language other than English).
ReplyDeleteI think the English Law should be passed. If someone plans on moving to the United States they should know the language that is most spoken is English. You're coming to our country for better opportunities (majority of the time) you should have the courtesy to learn our language. No I am not saying if a person doesn't know English they should be kicked out of the United States, I am just saying learning English should be their top priority. I don't appreciate going to Mcdonald's and not understanding one word the cashier is saying! I know english is a hard language to learn because of all the different rules and grammar. But if high school students are required to learn another language, these people from other countries can learn English.
ReplyDeleteThis was so interesting! I had never heard about the “ghoti” pronunciation before. I actually tried to spell and sound it out in my head as I read. It really should be pronounced “fish” if you use the words that George Bernard Shaw suggested. I’m taking Race and Ethnicity right now as my history class, and we have touched upon some of the facts you mentioned about the English Only laws. I don’t think I know enough about the subject to make a full decision, but I do think that diversity in culture is what makes America so wonderful. I love that we are all so different, in looks, language, and traditions. I think that immigrants and people from other countries should know how to communicate with Americans who only speak English, but I don't see the harm in expanding our knowledge of other languages either.
ReplyDeleteI find this interesting too! And it is actually a huge debate in the Us. In my opinion, people should learn whatever language they want to! Although I say that, I do believe that if they are working here in America, they should learn how to speak the English language. Our country is a melting pot of cultures and traditions that it would be way to hard to even break them apart. I do not think it should be English only because we should accept everyone and just suck it up and deal with it.
ReplyDeleteWhat people don't realize is that our country today is filled with people who have recently immigrated, so much that minorities are slowly losing their position as such. Now, why in a country where we invite and actually encourage immigration should we deem it necessary for them all to learn english? A great way to view the situation is to pretend you are no longer here. The way I look at it: Imagine you lived in a city in mexico. In mexico, they only speak spanish. You've been speaking this language you whole life and nothing else! Suddenly, you're father looses his job and now you have no where to go. You have no home, no money, no food. However, you know of America, and there people are willing to pay you money, more money than you've ever known, to do what you're doing here. Since you have no place to sleep, you start you journey up north. This all happens within a matter of days. This family has no time to learn english, to try and understand the ridiculous concepts we've built over centuries of adaptations to several various languages. They, rightfully, don't care about the language because that's not what's important; what's important is their family and their life. While in America, they can learn the language. If they choose not to learn the language others speak, that's actually putting themselves at a disadvantage. People need to remember to view this from multiple angles. These immigrants are not coming over disrespectfully, they are running to a place where they can survive and have life.
ReplyDeleteI am pro-English Law because I believe that our nation needs to have a standard. Our constitution, the declaration of independence, and all of the laws are passed in English. I think that if our grounds are stated in the English language then the American language should be declared, English. I understand that our country was founded on immigrants but there are too many minor nationalities in America to make just one of them a co-national language. English is most of native born Americans first languages and for us to not declare English our native language is ridiculous to me. All of food had English written all over it, our street signs are written in English, all of our text books are written in English, and our school systems teach in English. For example, If I were to go into Venezuela and try to start a campaign to promote English as the main language people would look at me and think I was crazy. I’m trying to say that America should promote English Law because most if not almost all of our inhabitants speak it.
ReplyDeleteThe english law should be passed. English is the prodominant language used in this country therefore people coming in should at least make an attempt to learn it. The more people that know the language, the more productive this country could be as a whole with everyone on the same page without the language barrier to deal with.
ReplyDeleteLike any other language I think the English language is difficult to learn when you are over the age of 10. My native language is Spanish and I speak perfect English. However my mother and father who have been here for 17 years just like I have, don't know the English language too well. They sure as hell can defend themselves though and they understand everything they are told. The problem between English and Spanish is that everything is reversed for example "toilet paper" , "papel sanitario".
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting topic because a friend of mine told me about this problem a few years ago. He had moved to America with his brother from Africa and they could each speak four languages (including French), but not English. My Latin teacher (who knew French) would help them to learn English. Once they finally started learning the language, he told me that English was the hardest language that he has ever learned. He said that there were so many inconsistencies and exceptions (which is why he didn’t like learning vowels) and he hated the weird spelling mottoes that didn’t work (I before e, except after c, which doesn’t always work). He told me that he was only learning this language so that he could communicate with us better because he didn’t want there to be a language barrier. He thought that his learning English was better and than 100 people learning Benin. It is his best foot forward manner of thinking that makes me think that the English law should be passed. I think that our country would be much more productive and unified if we were all on the same speaking terms. We judge each other (whether we admit it or not) based on our looks and sometimes (even if we don’t want it to happen, it can) we judge each other based on our nationality. I think that if we all spoke the same language, we will be much more unified and finally see each other for what we all are regardless of heritage: Americans.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I disagree that English is a hard language to learn. I came to the United States from Colombia when I was 8 years old, and in a matter of about 4 or 5 months, I was already speaking English well enough that I could hold an ordinary conversation. Most grammar in English is simple, the words are relatively short, and the verbs change only in 3rd person and past tense. The alphabet is also pretty short compared to other languages that have hundreds, if not thousands of characters which take years to learn. Growing up in South Florida I have also witnessed a countless number of people learn English as fast as I did. Sometimes I'm even surprised at the fact that my grammar and spelling are much better than that of native English speakers; it's almost shocking how so many of them confuse basic rules such as "your" and "you're" or "its" and "it's".
ReplyDeleteI absolutely disagree with the idea of an "English only" law. Like someone in a previous comment said, it is unconstitutional since the constitution clearly asserts that we have freedom of speech. Most people that can't speak English are those that came to the U.S. as adults. Even though it is an easy language to speak, it's not that they don't WANT to learn it, it's just that they have other, more important things to worry about. A lot of them have to work to maintain their families and find ways to bring food to the table, and therefore, DON'T HAVE THE TIME to learn. I find it ignorant when people say that everyone should learn English simply because it is the native language. I think that once you experience life in another country (not on vacation, but actual residence), your perspective on such an issue tends to be more lenient and liberal. You learn to accept the fact that the world itself is more than just the U.S. and that there is no way possible that we could ever create a standard language for any country.
I think that using English as a language makes communication much easier. English is the second most common language in the world behind Chinese and Chinese is the most common language only because of the massive amount of people that live in China. I think an "English only" law would never happened but the US making English as our official language is very plausible.
ReplyDeleteI have been told throughout the foreign language classes I took in high school that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, besides of course languages like mandarin chinese with thousands of symbols which require perfect pronunciation. Luckily, I was taught English when I was born so I never really noticed how difficult it was. While one common language would make communication easier, it isn't fair to everyone. Many people don't have the time to learn another language while working to support themselves, and also everyone's language is a piece of their identity. America could choose the most common languages, like English and Spanish, and make them the national languages, and print several translations of words on signs like Canada. But really, I think our system is working out as is.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I have to admit I love your topic. I think it’s very interesting and relevant what is going on right now. My thoughts on English as a language are that even though it may be ridiculous like you said in the blog, it has become a universal language. It is the language used wherever you go in the world to communicate with others who speak a different language. It is the language of the world of business as well. But I do think it is completely absurd to want us to speak only English in the US. Not only because the United States is a multicultural country, but also because limiting us to only one language is pointless. Why not be multilingual? Like Canada, where both English and French are taught? Why not be good at many other languages besides just one?
ReplyDeleteI think that English is an easy way to communicate, but of course that is because i speak it. For others who speak different languages it is, like you said, very difficult. An English Only law should not be passed in my opinion because that is what makes our country so diverse. We spend countless classes in middle school and high school and college to learn different languages, so why would we pass a law to have English only? Diverse is good and we should keep the different languages we have in the US.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this was a good history lesson I strongly disagree with your main point. Yes i think that English should be "the language" of the U.S. and it should be written in law. What language was the Constitution written in? What language did our founding fathers speak? What language did the the North and the South speak before they were united? They all spoke English. And yes this country is made up of immigrants if you really want to go there. But so is every other country in the entire world, so that argument doesn't hold any muster. Personally I am tired of the immigrants coming into this country and ruining it. It isn't what it used to be and it needs to go back to how it originally was. Back to how our founding fathers intended for it to be. I shouldn't have to "Press 1 for English."
ReplyDeleteIf you know english you will be able to communicate at a lot of different places. Many countries also view english as a very important language and decide to teach it in schools. I think it's important and it helps you a lot if you know this language. However I don't think that an english only law should be passed. Some people come to the US searching for a better life and at an old age it's very difficult for them to learn a new language. Imigrants make up a large part of the US, they shouldn't be forced to the english only law
ReplyDeleteI never thought about how difficult the English language would be to learn for people who have another first language. It has almost no similarities to other languages. Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese have great similarities and it is easier to learn these languages due to the bases of the words. I was confused about the "Ghoti"in the title but it is actually interesting to hear the story behind it.
ReplyDeleteI believe that English should be recognized as our nation's language. The colonists who settle on the East coast and freed our country from British rule all spoke English. The immigrants who came to America later either already spoke it, or had the respect and decency to learn and speak the language of the nation that accepted them, harbored them, and would protect them. They loved their new home and even infused their language into our own to create a form of English unique to our country and our identity. If immigrants today do not wish to show the same respect and enthusiasm to live in this country, they should stay where they are.
ReplyDeleteWe speak English every day but few English speakers, myself included, butcher the language. I don't know many people who excell in grammar because it is so confusing in the english language. I can remember completing countless "sentence correction" worksheets in elementary, middle, and high school and still to this day, grammar confuses me. I can only imagine how non-native english speakers feel if i, a native english speaker for 19 years now, can't even correctly use my own language. I do not think that an "English only" law should be passed. This country is made richer with influences from the many different languages, races, and cultures which are prevalent in America and i think a law which would make English the only language would take away something that makes our country unique.
ReplyDeleteI found this extremely interesting, I never really thought about how english plays a role in todays society. I do feel that you should speak any language you chose too, but at least also know english because it becomes very difficult when you are trying to communicate with someone and there is a language barrier. However, since our country is so diverse it would be difficult to establish an english only law.
ReplyDeleteIts funny how I’ve had this conversation with others many times before and I never realized how serious this topic really is. Even though, I’ve heard English is a very difficult language to learn, I believe that if you live in the United States you should at least attempt to learn the language, but I strongly disagree that there should be a law that strictly enforces you to speak it. The United States prides itself on all its freedoms and you cannot take a persons right to speak their own language if they are immigrants. I am actually at a crossroads with this topic.
ReplyDeleteIf you go to any other country, its natural for them to expect you to learn their language and respect their customs, it’s the same as immigrants coming over here. However, we live in a country where we encourage others to have a better life so that they can have opportunities in a place where they couldn’t before. Even though, English is a universal language, why must we limit ourselves to only one form of communication? Instead, we should learn how to speak other languages because it will only benefit us in the future.
My belief is that when living in a country permanently, especially if you work there, you should be able to speak the native language. Although english is very hard to learn, and not very much of it makes sense, people living where it is spoken should be able to comprehend it. I though the "Ghoti" reference was really funny though, I actually see something about that pass through my Stumbleupon and my Facebook occasionally. Back to the "English Only" law though, I do not think It can be passed literally in today's society nor do I think we should waste time trying to push it through.
ReplyDeleteEnglish is my second language. I would just like to say that it is a very difficult language to learn because of the cultural blends of its origins. Is it impossible to learn? Absolutely not. Having an “English Only” law would be very difficult not because it is hard to learn English but because this country was founded on immigration and right now the amount of immigration is out of control. So, to try to have one language for such a large and culturally diverse, democratic, and free nation would be very difficult.
ReplyDeleteI feel as if the question stated is more of a political one, and for that here I go. Yes this country was founded on immigrants speaking many different languages and having different backgrounds, but in today's society, it is not that easy to make an assumption like this. I can safely assume that the majority of America's citizens speak english. In fact English is a WORLD language that is taught to both business and political leaders. Is English the most common language in the world? NO! But yet it is used as a standard for the world. I strongly believe that EVERYONE in the United States should be able to communicate in English and English SHOULD be the STANDARD for ALL American Citizens. I have been in countless situations where just the lacking of the English language resulted in a serious dilema. C'mon people if you: live, work, eat, play, sleep, whatever you do....if it's in the United States the English language should be used.
ReplyDeleteThough I have spoken English my entire life, I find it easy to believe that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn. As a matter of fact after many years of Spanish classes I have picked up very little from what is supposedly one of the easier languages to learn. This being said, I also believe that immigrants to the United States should make some attempt to learn and speak English whether it's a law or not. This would allow immigrants to teach their children English from a young, making it easier for the children to learn and succeed in school. Overall, I believe that English should be the standard language for all Americans as the majority speak English. This would greatly improve communication, making the country as a whole stronger.
ReplyDeleteWhen I took spanish classes in high school I remember our teacher constantly reminding us that compared to english any other language is easier to learn. I 100% agree with her, I recall sometimes looking at a word in a english mindset and then a spanish mind set and the difference in pronunciation and emphasis on which letters is giant. I believe that all american citizens should learn english because it would make things a lot easy for everyone. But do have a law requiring it would just be ridiculous, this is the United States of America not some private club that only people that pass a test get to be a part of.
ReplyDeletei believe in an English only law. it was said that the sun never set on the British empire, because of this English has spread to the corners of the world. if thats all these places have in common i don't understand why English wouldn't be the language. the weariest people in the world speak english, and as much as we want to deny it, money runs the world. we have to play there game and speak their language.
ReplyDeleteAlthough i don't believe that an English only law should be passed, I do believe that it is somewhat important for everyone to know at least a little bit of English. English has become somewhat of a universal language for everyone, everywhere. Still, I dont think that it should ever be "English only." With the vast amount of cultures and ethnicities out there, it would be impossible to do that. The world is made up of many different people, and culture, being such an important thing to everyone, should be preserved no matter what.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article. I am a firm believer in learning the language, but when I went to Italy I felt like just another American asshole and I realized how it feels to be a foreigner. I think they should learn the language so they are not bewildered all the time. They should learn it for their own good, but it should not be enforced. I think it would just be utterly stupid to spend money on enforcing something that is a negligible problem in the US today.
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