should the usa have one official language?

RavennaSeattle1911

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_where_language_is_a_political_issue

mammasan

Well English is our unofficial official language. You pretty much can't get a decent job in this country without knowing English. I really don't see the need of passing some stupid legislation declaring what is already pretty damn obvious.

Last Exodus

Yiddish

mammasan

I think we should revive a dead language like Amorite or Kassitic nd make that our official language.

jeffbr

I don't think we need to declare English the "official" language. But I also don't think we need to legislate that our government publications be printed in 20 different languages. They should be published in 1. English. Private companies could provide the same documents in whichever languages they want, and the people who want them could pay for them. We shouldn't be enablers, we should encourage them to assimilate and speak the language.

sponger

I'm waiting for the day when telepathy is the official language.

jlew24asu

RavennaSeattle1911 wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_where_language_is_a_political_issue

yes, I think english should be the official language

kenny olav

Esperanto.

Rushlimbo

The language of love. Sweet.

Lesbelges

Well i think it wouldn't make much difference.

However, I think making an official language kind of takes away from the melting pot idea which is associated with the USA, and I think Americans are proud of.

That's the only reason i could think someone would be against doing this. Cause in all practicality everyone speaks English anyway, the only change will be on a piece of paper and some encyclopedias.

soulsinging

as im listening to sigur ros, i want our official language to be hopelandic.

LikeAnOcean

I think the world should have an official language, and if it means me learning a new one, so be it. Things would be alot easier and people would better understand each other.

Ahnimus

No

sponger

To me, language is symbolic of culture, and culture is stupid. So, if we make a certain language official, then we are making a certain culture official. And, again, no culture should be official because culture is stupid. I think we should just let things coast as far as they can possibly go until one day we all realize that culture is stupid. It's sort of like letting a drug addict hit rock bottom. By making english the official language, we let the culture addict continue to think culture is good. If we let the culture addict OD on a million different cultures at once, he'll finally get the big picture.

sourdough

LikeAnOcean wrote:

I think the world should have an official language, and if it means me learning a new one, so be it. Things would be alot easier and people would better understand each other.

Well we're right on our way. Currently there is an estimated 6000 languages worldwide. By the end of the century we're projected to lose all but about 600. Many, many languages are dying out. Once a language is lost, the associated culture is also gone. I don't think losing our global cultural diversity is a good trade off for convenience.

Furthermore, bilingual people statistically score higher on IQ and other intelligence tests because we use different parts of our brain to process and learn languages. I think it is only beneficial for us to learn new cultures and languages rather than conform to one standard alone.

sourdough

sponger wrote:

To me, language is symbolic of culture, and culture is stupid. So, if we make a certain language official, then we are making a certain culture official. And, again, no culture should be official because culture is stupid. I think we should just let things coast as far as they can possibly go until one day we all realize that culture is stupid. It's sort of like letting a drug addict hit rock bottom. By making english the official language, we let the culture addict continue to think culture is good. If we let the culture addict OD on a million different cultures at once, he'll finally get the big picture.

Sorry for being dense, but why is culture stupid? You cannot eliminate "culture". It is our language, our beliefs and our history. You cannot just eliminate culture period. Some cultures come and go, but there will always be culture. I'm not sure if I made any sense

Gary Carter

no, my main beef is that people dont learn english. u wanna speak your language thats fine with me, BUT LEARN TO SPEAK FUCKING ENGLISH IN AMERICA

soulsinging

sourdough wrote:

Sorry for being dense, but why is culture stupid? You cannot eliminate "culture". It is our language, our beliefs and our history. You cannot just eliminate culture period. Some cultures come and go, but there will always be culture. I'm not sure if I made any sense

no, you did. he's the one not making sense. culture is as human as walking upright. it's been with us since we crawled out of caves.

sponger

I'm not calling for the elimination of culture. I'm calling for the evolvement from it.

First off, let me just say what has been described as culture:

"Our history". Culture is not history. History is the recording of events. History exists with or without culture.

"Our beliefs". A more accurate interpretation of this is: "The beliefs that I'm supposed to have according to.....whomever.' They aren't your beliefs. They're the beliefs of the majority representing what you believe to be your "tribe". You adopted those beliefs because you weren't capable of or were too scared to form beliefs of your own.

"Our language". In a perfect world, there would be no language. We would all be telepathic. Language is the communication of ideas and thoughts just as homing pigeons are the couriers of messages. One person's homing pigeon is another person's cell phone. If you got used to using a cell phone, then homing pigeons are about as useful as culture.

What I'm saying is that people are stupid, mindless, tribal creatures who don't know a thing about who they really are deep down, so they rely on totally superficial and self-limiting identifiers known as cultures.

Cultures fuel the belief that people from certain parts of the world should act a certain way. It is one of the major inhibitors of free thought.

Here's an example of the sheer stupidity that the observance of "cultures" breeds: A co-worker of mine the other day, after finding out that I'm Japanese/German, asked me, "What culture do you identify with more?"

If you don't think that is the most ignorant, stupidest, naive, and just outright closed-minded question you've ever heard, then omfg you need help. But, it's the kind of question that I'd expect from people who observe "cultures".

Let me also give the example of Barak Obama. Even if you don't believe he is presidential material, I'm sure we can all agree that he is at least a very intelligent, motivated, and mentally stable person.

Yet, in his autobiography, he admits to becoming a cocaine addict because he had difficulty struggling with his "identity". This need to "identify" was forced on him by the collection of imbeciles known as our "society", which is too narrow minded to understand the various intricacies of the human personality without the aid of a "culture" to make it real nice and simple.

soulsinging

sponger wrote:

"Our beliefs". A more accurate interpretation of this is: "The beliefs that I'm supposed to have according to.....whomever.' They aren't your beliefs. They're the beliefs of the majority representing what you believe to be your "tribe". You adopted those beliefs because you weren't capable of or were too scared to form beliefs of your own.

What I'm saying is that people are stupid, mindless, tribal creatures who don't know a thing about who they really are deep down, so they rely on totally superficial and self-limiting identifiers known as cultures.

Cultures fuel the belief that people from certain parts of the world should act a certain way. It is one of the major inhibitors of free thought.

this is one of the most simple-minded things i've ever read. anyone who values their ancestry is too stupid and scared to think for themselves? the world you talk about would be so dull as to be meaningless. there would be no point to ever go to rome, or la, or tokyo, or anywhere outside your hometown becos everything everywhere would be exactly the same. the people would all think the same, speak the same, act the same, etc. this is the scary school of liberal thought... they aren't really fighting for diversity or respecting differences, they are fighting to eradicate all differences and make everyone exactly the same. "when in rome do as the romans do" would make no sense, becos you're saying you want the romans to do the same things the americans do who are doing the same things the japanese do. but the japanese ARE different from the americans and that makes me happy, cos it makes this world pretty interesting. sure, the downside is occasionally you will have ethnocentrism or racism or conflict, but those things will not go away if you eradicate cultural differences.

you're talking about the kind of world the nazis dreamed of... one language and everyone from the same background. they tried getting there by killing people who were different, you're talking about getting there by encouraging people to give up all their differences or pretend they don't exist. they do.

sponger wrote:

Here's an example of the sheer stupidity that the observance of "cultures" breeds: A co-worker of mine the other day, after finding out that I'm Japanese/German, asked me, "What culture do you identify with more?"

If you don't think that is the most ignorant, stupidest, naive, and just outright closed-minded question you've ever heard, then omfg you need help. But, it's the kind of question that I'd expect from people who observe "cultures".

there is nothing stupid about that question. if someone asked me which culture i identify with more (irish or french) i would hardly be so outraged (irish by the way). apparently oh my fucking god i need help... so explain to me, what is so god awful about that perfectly legitimate question? how is it any different from asking what your religion is? political affiliation? career? it's just one of many factors that plays a role in who you are.

sponger

soulsinging wrote:

this is one of the most simple-minded things i've ever read. anyone who values their ancestry is too stupid and scared to think for themselves? the world you talk about would be so dull as to be meaningless. there would be no point to ever go to rome, or la, or tokyo, or anywhere outside your hometown becos everything everywhere would be exactly the same. the people would all think the same, speak the same, act the same, etc. this is the scary school of liberal thought... they aren't really fighting for diversity or respecting differences, they are fighting to eradicate all differences and make everyone exactly the same. "when in rome do as the romans do" would make no sense, becos you're saying you want the romans to do the same things the americans do who are doing the same things the japanese do. but the japanese ARE different from the americans and that makes me happy, cos it makes this world pretty interesting. sure, the downside is occasionally you will have ethnocentrism or racism or conflict, but those things will not go away if you eradicate cultural differenceyou're talking about the kind of world the nazis dreamed of... one language and everyone from the same background. they tried getting there by killing people who were different, you're talking about getting there by encouraging people to give up all their differences or pretend they don't exist. they do.
s.

With the absence of cultures, the world would be as "dull and meaningless" as individual people. If you find individual people to be dull and meaningless if they are not defined by a certain culture, then you are exactly the kind of mindset that I am describing. Cultures are the suppression of original thought. And this suppression exists because people like you think it's "interesting". It's entertaining for you to see people act and live a certain way, even though that way of acting or living might have little to do with who those people really are.

Again, I'm not saying that everyone should be the same. That's what cultures dictate, except on a smaller scale. I'm saying people should be who they are. People don't know who they are. People for centuries have been born and raised knowing very little about what actually makes them tick.

This kind of ignorance to the infinite variations of people is what leads to the observance of cultures. Cultures are microcosms of the very suppression of individuality that you think the absence of cultures would result in.

You keep implying that because I don't observe the value of culture, I must therefore want to see them eliminated. What I want is for people to ignore the value of culture if that is what they feel inclined to do. I think people feel obligated to identify with certain cultures, and what I want is for there to be that option -that awareness- to disregard identity altogether.

BTW, the nazis valued the white germanic culture. So that example is totally irrelevant because that's still the observance of a culture. The absence of culture allows for the inhindered expression and observance of individual characteristics to infinite degrees.

there is nothing stupid about that question. if someone asked me which culture i identify with more (irish or french) i would hardly be so outraged (irish by the way). apparently oh my fucking god i need help... so explain to me, what is so god awful about that perfectly legitimate question? how is it any different from asking what your religion is? political affiliation? career? it's just one of many factors that plays a role in who you are.

Consider the context. I merely told her what my bloodline was. She immediately assumed that I identified with one or the other. She immediately drew herself into categorizing me by my bloodline. Should it not occur to her that my belief system has a likelihood of being independent of either?

If she had asked, "Do you identify with either of those cultures?", then it would've been a different story.