MDDM18: German

[Dave Monroe]

Was wondering if/when this would come up ...

--- Otto <o.sell at telda.net> wrote:
> 
> When did English become official US-language? Or has
> it never been a question at all?

This simply came up first ...

"Those of you who have been around here for longer
than you care to admit (like me) may remember the time
someone brought up a legend about German having
narrowly missed becoming the official language of the
United States. This is a common story, and the usual
cap to it is that Congress voted - by a majority of
one vote - to make English the official language of
the US, this significantly altering the course of
development in the US textbook publishing industry. 

"The story is false. Matter of fact, the US at present
does not have an "official" language in the sense of a
language declared by law to have special status;
English is merely the de facto standard. There _was_
indeed some discussion about which language to adapt,
with some strong seperatists arguing that English was
the language of the "enemy". However, there were no
cliff-hangers as suggested by the legend mentioned
above; the strong seperatists were a minority group,
and it was pretty clear from the start that most
people considered changing from English to be too much
trouble. All this junk was discussed the last time
around, but i wanted to summarize it for those who
weren't with us then. 

"The reason for bringing this up is that i have found
an incident that may be the source of this UL. (Drum
roll.) My source is the _Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Language_, by David Crystal, published by the
Cambridge University Press, (c)1987. In the interest
of completeness, ISBN 0 521 26438 3. 

from page 365: 

_A planning myth_ 

"Probably the best-known myth in the history of
language planning is the story that German nearly
became the national language of the US in the 18th
century, losing to English by only one vote in the
legislature (the "Muhlenberg" legend). In fact, all
that was involved was a request, made by a group of
Virginia Germans, to have certain laws issued in
German _as well as_ in Englih. The proposal was
rejected by one vote, apparently cast by a
German-speaking Lutheran clergyman, Frederick
Muhlenberg (1750-1801). But the general status of
English as the majority language was never in doubt.
(After S.B. Heath and F. Mandabach, 1983.) 

[End quote] 

"Just to show that i did my homework, the paper
referred to is: Heath, S.B., and Mandabach, F. 1983.
Language status decisions and the law in the United
States. In J. Cobarrubias and J.A. Fishman (eds.),
_Progress in language planning: international
perspectives_ (Berlin: Mouton), 87-105."

http://www.urbanlegends.com/language/german_us_official_lang.html

And see also ...

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/question.htm

http://www.aclu.org/library/pbp6.html

And this is particularly extensive ...

http://www.watzmann.net/scg/german-by-one-vote.html

Okay, looks like y'all've been active today, so ...

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