If only we knew what that was...
The United States is home to approximately 336 languages (spoken or signed) of which 176 are indigenous to the area. 52 languages formerly spoken in the US territory are now extinct...
The United States does not have an official language...
Several states ... are officially bilingual:
- Louisiana (English and French),
- New Mexico (English and Spanish),
- Hawaii (Hawaiian English and Hawaiian),
In 2000, the census bureau printed the standard census questionnaires in six languages: English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese (in traditional characters), Vietnamese, and Tagalog.
[ Languages in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
And, of course, the official languages or most often heard languages in many sections of the US when we "acquired" them was not English. German, French, Spanish were all spoken in large sections of the US for many many years, and for much of that before they were "American".
Now I am sure I understand the issue. It is a common known fact that multiple language countries are at a big disadvantage in the world, and will always be second rate countries. I mean I've never even heard of some of these places:
- Norway (Bokmål Norwegian, Nynorsk Norwegian; small Sami- and Finnish-speaking minorities)
-
Iceland (Icelandic, English, Nordic languages, German widely spoken)
-
Luxembourg (Luxermbourgish (national) French, German)
-
Canada (English & French)
-
Sweden (Swedish, small Sami- and Finnish-speaking minorities)
-
Switzerland (German, French, Italian, Romansch)
-
Ireland (English, Irish)
-
Belgium (Dutch, Flemish, French, German)
Oh, wait, those are all countries that the UN ranks higher than the US as most livable. I've got it, multi-lingual is a hindrance to our economic might. So we'll check the World Economic Forum's Growth Competitiveness rankings to see who threatens our might and how they will have an unfair advantage by being uni-lingual:
-
Finland - even if they aren't multi-lingual, they're in the EU and have to deal with it
- Sweden - see above
-
Denmark - see above
-
Taiwan - Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka dialects (See
CIA)
-
Singapore - Mandarin, English, Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Tamil, other Chinese dialects, other (Says the
CIA)
-
Iceland - see above
-
Switzerland - see above
-
Norway - see above
-
Australia - well... I think some of the aboriginals might not speak English...
So it's not that. It must be that supporting more than one language is a burden on the government and their spending resources. That would mean all of the largest economies in the world would have to have one language, or they'd have spent all their money supporting their masses that don't fall in line with the rest of their nation. According to AustralianPolitics.com the top 15 (minus the US and Australia, 'cause I wanted to) are:
- Japan - Aha! Here's one.
- Germany - EU country, see above
- United Kingdom - EU country, see above (though not sharing a currency. 'course that doesn't matter they still have the regional languages to deal with - Scottish, Welsh, Norman French)
- France - EU country, see above
- China (exc.HK) - Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages (see Ethnic groups entry)
- Italy - EU country, see above
- Canada - Still English and French
- Mexico - Spanish, various Mayan, Nahuatl, and other regional indigenous languages
- Spain - EU country, see above
- Brazil - Portuguese, Spanish, English, French
- India - English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit
- Korea - Korean, English
- Netherlands - EU country, see above
(All language info for that bunch also from the CIA) OK, so far we are threatened by the Australians and the Japanese and want to level the playing field by exporting millions of foreign speaking, most likely illegal, aliens from the US. And, of course, any lands that we (as a country) purchased or won in war are expected to fall in line with our un-official official language of English in 1 generation or less. Plus we'd rather not spend any money on those language classes, so bring a check book (though we're happy to pay for hunting down the "illegals").
I'm glad that I've done a bit of research and thought this out. Next up: lets close all of these foreign food establishments, I think they are attracting fer'ners too...