Starting out

As the rate of immigrants, legal or not, continues to increase in America, we as nation do our part to help coddle the new wave of pseudo-citizens. We do so by including foreign languages on billboards, signs, and just about anything to ease the immigrants into our lifestyle. Then again, shouldn’t they attempt to learn our language? Or is this assistance a reminder to others that we are a nurturing nation? In this sense, would making English the official language of America push foreign cultures further away, or bring them closer to our own?

The removal of foreign languages from such places as road signs or other public areas seems unnecessary. William F. Buckley feels that “These signs don’t seriously inconvenience anybody,” since “there is always an English version within sight.” In doing this, America hopes to have English as its official language. But such attempts at language unification have not only occurred in the States, nor can it be merely considered a recent issue. In 1887, an attempt at a universal language was made. The language, Esperanto, was intended to be a simple to learn language, based mostly off of European languages. The language took heavy criticism, from political figures such as Adolf Hitler; who considered the language a manner of world domination, to Senator Joseph McCarthy; who considered the language sympathetic towards communism. As you can see, the language unification was by no means accepted, so it would seem that such unification would meet with heavy resistance.