President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 1 designating English as the official language of the United States.
Yes, that’s right. We’ve been speaking English since colonial times, but nobody got around to this until Trump. Congratulations!
That doesn’t mean we should be against other languages, or that Americans shouldn’t study them. Actually, more Americans should study foreign languages.
In my day job, I’m a Spanish teacher in a public school, but that’s a separate matter.
When it comes to our national political life, we must use the English language.
For one thing, it’s just practical to have a common language everybody uses.
Politicians lie enough speaking one language. They say one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience.
But at least if they’re speaking the same language we can more easily catch what they’re doing.
The recent trend of using non-English languages in political campaigns means politicians can say one thing in English to one audience and another thing in a foreign language to another audience.
The language issue is also a question of safety.
Do we want workers in dangerous jobs to have any doubt about the safety rules of their profession? No, we don’t.
On April 28, President Trump signed an executive order requiring truck drivers to understand English.
Is it ok to have truck drivers who don’t know English driving around the country?
After all, stop signs have a universal design used worldwide. So, what’s the problem?
In order to understand this issue I consulted Wid “Ironman” Lyman, paterfamilias of the Lyman clan and an experienced truck driver himself.
The Ironman told me five reasons truckers should know English:
1) Simple signs with just symbols are not the problem. Much more dangerous are the temporary signs that flash messages about detours, construction, workers present, lane changes, etc.
2) Over-the-highway signs that contain information about weather conditions, traffic back-ups, accidents, and other potentially hazardous situations need to be read quickly/accurately.
3) Shippers explaining precautions that must be taken with hazardous, heavy, unstable, fragile loads – like methods of securement, temperature settings, placarding of trailer, etc.
4) At destination, communicating with dock and office workers.
5) A big one: communicating with law enforcement during stops, following accidents, and at weigh stations. And communicating with other travelers, especially during tense/dangerous situations.
Lyman knows what he’s talking about and it all sounds reasonable to me.
Bravo to Trump for doing this.
There’s another reason English should be our official language.
English is the historical language of the United States and of the Historic American Nation.
Since the founding of the Jamestown Colony in 1607, we have been speaking English.
American English is not some discount knock-off version of the English language.
Since 1607, both British English and American English have undergone some changes. That’s what languages do over the centuries.
But sometimes it’s the Americans, not the contemporary British, who preserve the more archaic form of the language.
Consider, too, the great American poets and novelists who have wielded the pen, producing great literary works in American English.
English is the language of American literature, the U.S. Constitution, legal codes, folk songs and great speeches of our country for the past 400+ years.
The men who achieved American independence and established our republican form of government recognized this.
Alexander Hamilton said, “We think in English.”
In 1780, John Adams, referring to the American War of Independence, wrote this: “Separated as we are from the British dominion, we have not made war against the English language any more than against the old English character.”
The war had been fought against the British government of that time but not against the English language and culture.
So yes, English always has been, and still should be, our national language. If we lose the English language, we aren’t the same country.
As President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in 1919, “We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.”