The Senate recently passed a series of bills regarding the status of the English language that no one quite understands. Senate Republican James Inhofe of Nebraska Oklahoma proposed a bill defining English as the “official language” of the United States, and gave a fiery speech about it on the Senate floor, where he claimed that elminating all traces of bilingualism from government services would save taxpayers $1 to $2 billion a year.
But that’s not the end of the story. First, Inhofe himself softened the bill, changing “official language” to “national language,” which means something quite different. The measure passed. Then, senate Democrats countered and proposed an amendment which defined English as the “common and unifying” language, and that also passed. So which is it to be? Well, it’s not a law until it also goes through the House, so the whole thing could get changed again in Committee.
In the meanwhile, people are trying to figure out what the heck it means.To begin with, what is the difference between a “national” language and an “official” language?
Bill Poser at Language Log points out some of the variations you find in different countries regarding this distinction:
For example, Switzerland has three “official” languages (French, German, and Italian) but four “national” languages (the foregoing plus Romantsch). Swiss legislation specifies various ways in which a language that is merely “national” rather than “official”, in practice just Romantsch, has a somewhat second class status. The distinction made in Switzerland, however, is not necessarily carried over in other uses of terms like “official” and “national”. elsewhere. In the Northwest Territories [Canada], for example, several native languages have “official” status along with English and French, but their status is in fact not the same. There is, for example, no legal right to receive one’s education in a native language. (link)
That’s helpful; Wikipedia has a few more examples, as well as a very well written post explaining what an official language is in general.
In India, according to the Govt. of India Department of Official Language website, Hindi has been the “official” language since the 1960s, and English has status as another “acceptable official language.” There are also approximately 22 official state languages, though unfortunately the terminology at this Wikipedia entry is a bit confusing, marking the local languages as “other official languages.” (The government’s DOL site doesn’t list the “other official languages”.) Though Hindi has been declared the official language, its adoption has been resisted by South Indians, who have declared that the turn marginalizes them. Hindi as “official” doesn’t really seem to work.
The U.S. may be different from countries like Switzerland, Canada, or India in that most of the languages that are spoken here are spoken by immigrants. In other parts of the world, the different languages are nearly all indigenous to some extent. (Could the case be made that Spanish is “indigenous” to states like Texas, Florida, and California?)
Back to the Senate bill. The practical consequences of the recent U.S. Senate bill, if it does in fact become law, are prtty fuzzy. The clearest language in the bill as it stands is the statement that no one has the right to ask the any government agency to “act, communicate, perform or provide services or provide materials in any language other than English.” The government isn’t obligated to provide bilingual ballots or court translators, for instance, but state governments obviously can provide those services (and indeed, many states do).
For the most part this will probably not affect too many South Asian immigrants, though I could imagine that it could in places where there are high concentrations of immigrants. It’s not a question of the U.S. providing forms in Hindi, Punjabi, or Bengali (which I don’t is happening anywhere, nor do I think it is an issue). Rather, it might come up in other cases where the state feels it would be in its interest to be able to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak English — say, in court.
The Hispanic Civil Rights Group National Council of La Raza has denounced the bill in strong terms. And the Chicago Tribune has mocked it (“We don’t need a law declaring English our national language any more than we need one declaring the sky blue”). Even the Calcutta Telegraph has weighed in, with a piece called, cheekily, “No Comprendo”.
I’m pretty skeptical about the possible benefits of declaring English the “national” language, especially if there isn’t also direct provision to help more people in the U.S. learn English, and clear delineation of how this would play out in specific cases where bilingualism is currently employed.
English is the global language of business.
If you want to do buisness and make money and get far in life, learn English. Its pure economics. English will remain the world’s most important language. No doubt.
Hinglish is good too….
Bihari Babu,
Of course, every immigrant in the U.S. wants to learn English, but not everyone is in a position to do it right away. And there are lots of people who know a little English, but who are more comfortable in another language. This bill applies to those types of cases. The question isn’t whether it’s a good idea for people to learn English if they live in the U.S. — obviously it is. The question is more one of civil rights and the national interest: when might it be in the nation’s interest to accommodate people who don’t speak English well or at all?
I’m actually not thinking so much about the status of English in India on this one, though obviously India is interesting as a comparison case on “official” languages.
“English is the global language of business…. English will remain the world’s most important language. No doubt.”
Really? In that case, what would you make of this piece of news?
hmm.. this isnt just semantics. the debate should be healthy. let’s look this over in the canadian context – with the two “official” languages with Canada – one has the right to receive education in either of the two languages in canada – i believe one also has the right to receive services in either of the two official languages from a federal institution – i am not sure if the ‘right’ extends to private institutions, or they oblige because it’s good for business. there is only one province that is bilingual, the others are english or french. in the case of the last, there is something called the language police that is funded by the provincial government that penalizes businesses for not having enough french in their menus, signboards etc. btw i believe that it is extremely desirable (though not mandated by law) that the prime ministerial candidate have a certain amount of fluency in both official languages – (someone pls fill the holes if i’ve erred)
for those of you in the US, think down the path of what would happen should there be only one official language – and how this would curtail the service requirements on government institutions … what do you think? is that a good thing?
when i get back maybe i’ll dig into my memory for my understanding on the punjabi sooba and the tamil language wars … but if you could post, tht would save my digits some pressure. nundrai.
That may not be true for the future generations:
Thanks all for the comments.
The question is on Mandarin?
I agree to an extent. Mandarin (like all languages) is a nice ‘good to have’. But English will continue to be the number one language of business and communication for business.
At the end of the day non Mandrin speakers are more likely to learn English to get ahead than Mandarin, Hindi, French, Spanish, Russian or any other ‘global’ language. Even the Chineese have discovered this. The UK and US schools are packed with Chineese post grads. China knows it needs to know English.
Oops Amardeep. James Inhofe is from Oklahoma, not Nebraska [the two NE senators are Chuck Hagel(R) and Ben Nelson(D)]. Although from the east coast it looks like a blur of uniformly red right wing states, Oklahoma is much more insanely rabid than the stodgy midwestern Nebraska. Trust me. I have lived in both states.
The day following the bill’s passage, I was listening to a radio debate between Sen. Feinstein and some Republican dude. The moderator, for his closing remarks, said:
Cheap Ass Desi,
Great remark. Can you provide a link to it?
PV:
I can’t. Sorry! I don’t know which AM radio station I was listening to, but it was around 10 am on Sunday morning in Chicagoland. But it’s a great remark, isn’t it? I tried to remember exactly what the moderator was saying so as to quote him accurately. He also mentioned how it’s too easy to spend all that time to pass a useless bill when they should be alloting much more time to issues that are really important, ie the our wars, foreign policy and so on. This bill was a cop out for not affronting serious issues.
–Senator Cheap Ass Desi
Here you go…
Vikram:
Thanks, yaar.
–Sen. Cheap Ass Desi
Thanks Vikram and CAD!
Seriously, esto es bahuaj confusing che, lekin Hindi is bharat’s national language, so it makings travel in India clear as maatee. Maybe the same here! Taaliya!
Actually, as you pointed out, it’s totally unclear what the practical impact of this is going to be, because there hasn’t been any resolution as to what the powers that be want. However, as you pointed out millions of immigrants (including South Asian immigrants) under one version of this will lose the “right” to get materials in language. So, for example, the Census (whose guides are apparently distributed in multiple languages)? Possibly social services? Etc. The federal action, in turn, deepens a trend at the state and local levels.
Basically, this is a reaction to the demographic anxieties fears of English-speaking America–it seems likely that at some point, this is going to become at least a bilingual nation (English and Spanish) and they don’t like that (yet). So Congress throws a hissy fit that will adversely affect people.
Of course, the broader point, which I had hoped you would get to, is that the whole bill is very bad for those that care about immigrants or labor rights. Even erstwhile pro-immigrant supporters of the bill are now making this argument: because among other things, it calls for building a 370 mile wall along the border, ratifies the 6,000 military troops at the border that Bush proposed, allows for indefinite detentions, expands grounds and funding for deportations and jailings, leaves millions of people undocumented, and has a backdoor provision to make a lot of them criminals (it’s a technicality about the statute of limitations on entering the country without inspection). And the House hasn’t had a chance to destroy it even further.
Some legalization.
Actually, many government agencies are currently charged with providing documentation in other languages to help those with “limited English proficiency”. Additionally, the LEP criteria are used for providing bonus points to grantees and contract awardees. I would assume this would fade away in the event this bill was passed. The LEP criteria could be pulled anytime anyway because they were committed through an Executive Order which each President has the choice to uphold, ignore, or repeal.
Currently, in Chicago, there are fair housing materials available in many languages including Hindi, Urdu, and Arabic. But, the translations have been created by non-profit fair housing agencies in conjunction with immigrant social service agencies.
Providing these materials in native languages profoundly increases the awareness of fair housing law and how the US government works in immigrant communities.
In addition to government materials for housing, etc. this is a big issue for voting rights… currently, in any district with a population exceeding a certain percentage/number that has a predetermined amount of LEP folk, the government is required to provide materials in that language. In Los Angeles alone the government is mandated to provide materials in 6 languages beyond English (Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Spanish, and Khmer).
True enough, at this point, it’s not affecting South Asians anywhere in the country (at least according to Census data). But the predictions for the forthcoming South Asian immigrant populations show that this could become an area where South Asians should be concerned, particularly Bengali and Urdu speaking populations.
Saying that English is the official language — let alone saying the government will not provide materials in another language — opens the door for such absurd rulings as not being allowed to speak a language other than English in schools, the workplace, etc. (which is already a problem in a lot of areas)… I think that’s why English-only legislation is particularly frightening to me, because language is a cornerstone of any culture. Saying a language is unwelcome in this country is tantamount to saying the culture is unwelcome (in my eyes, at least). And then where would we be? English-only legislation comes up quite frequently in state congresses, but to see it coming up on a national level, and actually passing… that’s scary.
In india hindi and english are the official languages, which means that all government notices and work can be carried in either language. Because India is divides into states on linguistic boundaries, each state tends to have its own national language. The hindi heartland is in north india, so it is more likely that you would get by on english rather than hindi in the south because of the difference in language and script (in the north all the different state languages use a related script and sound like dialects). hence it needs to have different national languages to represent a significant segment of its population.
Come to the CVS Pharmacy on 14th Street and First Avenue, NYC. The Medicaid poster is in English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, and Bangla.
Hi Aranyi – I am always surprised by the puzzled look on the faces of the punjabis who I chat with here… surprised at the fact that hardly anyone in Kerala understands or much less speaks Hindi. The study of Hindi is obligatory in primary school but it is of very little practical value in Kerala. What little hindi I know is so atrocious that I would rather remain silent than oblige someone to endure my attempts at speaking hindi. A language is used only when it is practical in day-to-day life. Nevertheless, I am always amused by the linguistic divides among Indians. Yesterday, for example, I had to queue at the Indian consulate. In the queue with me were several Punjabis from Ludhiana. They spoke to me in Hindi, and I answered in English. They did not understand my English, so I continued in Spanish. They didn’t understand my Spanish, became silent and ceased to ask me any questions…