Talk:Languages of the United States/Archive 1

Creole

I can see on the primary language bar that Portuguese and Portuguese Creoles are counted as the same language, but French and French Creole are not. Why is that? kcar1986 00:34, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know the deal about Portugese/Portugese Creole, but the "French Creole" listed is Haitian Creole, which is really a separate language in its own right.

It's just the way the U.S. Census Bureau collates the language data. It is self-reported, but before the Census Bureau publishes, they make categories like "Portuguese and Portugese Creole." That is by far not the worst one. Others include "Other Indic languages" "African languages." Haitian Creole gets its own entry not because the Census Bureau has decided it is its own language in a way that Capeverdean Creole is not, but because there are more speakers of it. The census language data are quite imperfect anyway, as they are based on sampling data. Satyadasa 07:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

recent-immigrant lang

We could use something on recent-immigrant languages, especially current usages (much Korean, Cantonese, and Russian, for example, in NY); I should probably add a bit about Yiddish, among other things. Amish and Native American languages, probably belong in separate articles. Vicki Rosenzweig

About the official language in the USA

I don't quite understand that the English is not an official language in the USA. What this really means? I do believe that almost all official documents and such are written in English. Can someone explain this a little bit more? I can't imagine if I'll do much with swahili or with some more exotic language in public. And I get almost a petty nausea when I saw for example John Wayne speaking German in almost all German and Austrian TV's. And after all you can speak swahili in my homeland too, if you want. And it is quite a fun. Many African students are still studying in Ljubljana and they learn some Slovene. The most famous of them is Ignacio Bintchende aka Janez Belina (English John Whiteness). He also had some (let us say) neo-nazi incidents. After all do I live in a free country far away from mother Africa, where a word nigger can be heard many times - even in public politics? :-) Best regard. -- XJamRastafire 18:03 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

It simply means that the United States does not have an officially decreed language that must be used. English is certainly the most common, but millions of Americans live their lives speaking other languages.

In general, you are supposed to speak English to be naturalized as a citizen, but even that isn't a rigid standard. Here is a summary of the requirements:

A person must also demonstrate an ability to speak, read, and write ordinary English and have a general understanding of U.S. government and history. Long-time older permanent residents are exempt from the English requirement if they are 50 years or older and have been living in the U.S. for at least 20 years, or if they are 55 years or older and have been living in the U.S. for at least 15 years. These immigrants must still demonstrate knowledge of U.S. history and government, but they may do so in their native language.

Native-born Americans are not required to speak English in most places, although it is certainly handy!

Some US states have an official languages. In New Mexico both English and Spanish are official languages, although New Mexicans say the state does not always live up to its ideals in this regard. Ortolan88

Yes Ortolan88 now I got a picture. The most important thing is, as I understand, that a language is not decreed. Nice law. I know how hard it is for two different nations (or even more ones) to live together. I can here for example recall Austrian politician Jörg Haider, who will do anything even nowadays that two peaceful nations won't live together in a small region. I can imagine similar problems all over the world. So in this case States can be beautifull example of living together. Thank you very much for the explanation. -- XJamRastafire 18:45 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

---

• Does Congress have a procedural rule on the language which must be spoken in debates? If not then how is the official record kept?
• Do the federal courts have a law on one language for the officials of the court. If not how is justice seen to be done? Philip Baird Shearer 21:19, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin advocated German? This is the same Benjamin Franklin who complained about the Pennsylvania Germans because they were germanizing their neighbours instead of anglicising themeselves? -stoltz. (although it could be true...Franklin may have suggested the use of German, I don't know?)

"Benjamin Franklin advocated the use of German as the official language of the United States, marking a break from the language spoken by Great Britain, against which the newly-formed United States had recently rebelled."

I moved this to talk because it is inaccurate. Here [1] is a Straight Dope column to this effect. It wasn't Ben Franklin, and they weren't going to make it the only official language - they were just going to translate govdocs into German.Montréalais

Is it true that a vote was carried out after the War of Indeendence to decide on which language (French or English) should be the legeslative language?

language spoken in immigrant communities

I removed the section on language spoken in immigrant communities but are not considered indigineous because that clause doesn't make any sense. Chinese isn't any less indigenous to North America than English.

linguistic homogeneity

I removed this sentence: " Any other large nation in history had this linguistic homogeneity," because it just doesn't ring true. Think of China, the history of the North and South American continents, pre-'Discovery' Australia, the Soviet Union, the Roman Empire, the English empire, and on and on. Atorpen 04:15 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

Indeed. Would it even be going too far to say, "No other large nation in history has had this level of linguistic homogeneity"? -- Oliver P. 04:20 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

China? From Chinese language: 'The notion of a "Chinese Language" may seem at first to be a fiction. The term "Chinese" is employed for the classical written language known as "wen2 yan2 (?? "literary language")" which was used by Confucius, as well as the modern standard known as "bai2 hua4 (?? "vernacular")". It includes many different spoken variations which may be mutually unintelligible. The spoken language of Beijing is for example very different from Cantonese, the conversational language of Hong Kong'.

North and South American are continents, nor countries. Also, some small countries in Latin America as Bolivia have three official languages (and so much not officials).

In the same, the Soviet Union, the Roman Empire and the English empire were all empires, no countries. All of them were multietnic and multilingual.

The pre-'Discovery' Australia? From Australia: some of the surviving Aboriginal communities maintain their native languageS

Well, in Australian Aborigine, somebody wrote It should be noted that there were many different Aboriginal groups, with their own languages, cultures and beliefs which overlapped to a greater or lesser extent, and evolved over time.

And Brasil?

The English empire *was* North America. it only became multiethnic later when it became the British Empire. -- Derek Ross ??

Many different ethnic groups were present in N. America before the British crossed the Pacific. Please dont forget about them :) Cheers! - Ish ishwar 22:50, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In México they speak 62 (61 plus Spanish) languages right now, babies. (source).--196.40.40.179 03:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

ASL

Why isn't American Sign Language listed in the commonly used languages at home list? From what I've read, it's the third or fourth most spoken language in the United States, so I would guess they speak it at home too.  ;-) --Chuck SMITH

Grimes (2000) reports that ASL is signed by 100,000-500,000 Americans (out of a 2 million population of deaf persons), and Hawai'i Pidgin Sign Language by about 6,000 (almost extinct). Martha's Vineyard Sign Language is extinct (formerly signed in Massachusetts).

Many deaf people learn ASL in school, and their parents don't necessarily get very good at it. Sibs tend to, though. Otherwise they may use home sign. But many are brought up with an 'oral' education, and don't get exposed to ASL until adulthood. The majority of native signers are the children of Deaf parents, most of whom are hearing. Perhaps the lower end of the speaker estimates is closer to the number of home signers, with the higher end being daily users? So while the numbers for ASL would go up if you consider daily rather than home use, the numbers of other languages might go down. kwami 18:38, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

British ancestors

I removed the statement that 80% of Americans have no British ancestors. In the last census, 33% reported British background and since most respondents only listed one ethnicity, a primary one, than a far higher number have some British ancestors. Possibly even 80%? ;) Rmhermen 14:15, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

The 33% figure you cite is only accurate for *white* Americans. Key distinction there. The percentage of all Americans, in the 2000 census, who listed "American" ancestry along with those who listed British, English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish or Welsh ancestry, is about 22%. See British Americans.

33%? Hah, remember, 'British' is not an ethnic group. People of English origin are the highest in this collective ethnonym, accounting for 8.7% of the population. 80% is an absurd percentage as well. What makes us so sure that those who reported 'American' all derive from British forefathers? I'm taking a good guess that the majority of those who answered 'American', located in the midwest and other densely populated central intersections are of Scandinavian or German origin. Eric 05:58, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Can't remember the ref, but there are maps showing county-by-county ethnicities, colored according to plurality (largest minority) ancestry of those who declared an ancestry. The impression you get from such a map is that the vast majority of the country is either English or German in origin. That is, those two colors are spread over the entire country, with many small-town areas being almost exclusively so, whereas other ethnicities tend to be geographically concentrated. But of course you can easily be the plurality of a county at only 10% of the population. kwami 18:45, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

I don't know what percentage of the population of the United States has no British ancestry, but I do know that the largest ancestries in the United States are German and Irish. As such the majority of the population is certainly not of British ancestry, as there are at least two larger ancestry groups. Furthermore, it is very likely that the pluralities you saw on the map were in fact far less than 50% that the population. Furthermore, counties in the US vary dramatically in population. Los Angeles County, California, for example, has millions of residents (nearly 10 million), while Loving County, Texas has only 67. The largest counties in terms of area also tend to be in rural areas with low populations. Most of what the map you saw says it that rural areas in the United States tend to be more populated by people of German and/or English ancestry. Also, I would like to sign this post with my IP address, but i am unsure of how to do so. If there's anyone who reads this who knows how, it would be greatly appreciated if you could leave a comment instructing me how to do so.

This entire argument is absurd. German-Americans, British-Americans, or Italian-Americans or Korean-Americans for that matter, have not been endogamous. The ancestry that people report in the census, whether they report one or multiple ancestries, is self-reported, subjective, and limited in accuracy. A majority do not know all the parts of the world their ancestors came from. By this point, the majority of those with German ancestors also have British ancestors. The majority of those with British ancestors also have German ancestors. One could say that perhaps 80% of the population of the United States does not have a plurality of British ancestors, but that is equally meaningless. Satyadasa 10:10, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Parliament myth

I removed this bit:

In the late 19th century a voting took place in the Parliament, regarding the selection of the country's official language. English was the winning language, with Greek language having received just one vote less.

since it appears to me to be apocryphal - the popular urban legend.

I heard it about German, rather than Greek, losing by one vote. This has at least a little more basis in fact, but the situation as stated is incorrect according to Snopes ([2], [3]).

If somebody can substantiate this "fact" (for starters, give an exact year), feel free to put it back. Until then, out with this junk. -- pne 10:16, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Hello Parliament we do not have one in the US.

I fail to see why people take this so seriously. As far as I know, this urban legend stemmed from the fact that the US legislature had issued orders after the American revolution to have their documents translated into German. Eric 05:49, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

NPOV?

Some African-American activists insist that Ebonics, also known as African-American Vernacular English, the dialect of English spoken in many African-American sections of American urban areas, is not simply a dialect, but an entirely different language, and are urging that their language be accepted as an equal to American English.

I want to see some actual evidence for this -- which African-American advocates, for example, and when? I know linguists have been arguing that it's a valid dialect, and not just "bad English" forever, but -- well, what does it even mean, "accepted as an equal to American English." And if it is a dialect, then it already is American English by definition -- it's just not Standard American English. I'm not sure the above isn't just a kneejerk to some media claptrap.--Peccavimus 08:00, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There's a great deal of debate about Ebonics in the Black community. I don't know of anyone who claims it's a distinct language from English in the linguistic sense. Rather, they're using 'language' in the generic sense, because the word 'dialect' is pejorative in lay usage.

(Not many people speak of the 'standard dialect', rather they speak of 'dialects' vs. 'proper English'. There's also a long tradition of assuming that if you speak a 'dialect', it's because you're mentally incapable of expressing yourself 'properly'. Because of this, calling AAVE a 'dialect', especially if you're White, can cause offense.)

The problem Ebonics is trying to address is that if you don't recognize that kids come to school without a command of standard English, and address that fact, they will be disadvantaged later on. And if you simply tell them they have bad grammar and their families don't know how to speak properly, the educational results tend to not be very good either. Those in the Ebonics movement advocate the recognition of AAVE as a valid variety of English alongside the standard dialect. What this means in practice is that you give the kids' education a bi-lectal approach: "This is how we say X at home, or when writing in your journal, but this is how you need to say it when you're writing formally." You have school materials in both. Not parallel text books, of course: most material will continue to be in standard. But some material should be in AAVE too, such as story books and poetry, to show kids that their language (meaning the way they speak) is given validity by the school. There is some evidence that such an education makes it easier for kids to code switch, able to do well in a job interview without being ostracized from their peers for being snooty. That is, well educated without suffering an identity crisis. (No parent wants their child to grow up without a command of standard, but neither do they want them to be alienated.)

Explaining all this in the popular media can be problematic, especially when the word 'dialect' is out of bounds (not only for causing offense to Black people, but because most White people won't understand what it means). That's why it's often called a "language". However, if you ask people if they mean that AAVE's a separate language the way Gulla is, they'll say of course not, it's just a variety that needs to be recognized for the good of our kids. kwami 20:27, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

my commentary

Hi. I have a few comments that I hope everyone will consider.

I find this article to rather ethnocentric regarding its marginalization of the languages indigeneous to N. America. These languages are only mentioned very briefly at the end of the list of languages. This is unfortunate, especially considering the past and continued marginalization of these speakers.

These languages, I feel, should be discussed first in the article, if only as a kind gesture. These languages have been spoken in the territory of the US longer than any European language has been spoken in Europe, expecting Basque. The linguistic diversity in just California alone is far, far greater than the diversity in Europe. This is something to marvel at. The US language situation is unique because of their existence.

There is a sad history involved as well, which may make authors reluctant write about: the systematic efforts to eradicate these languages.

I guess the current organization & content of this page has been influenced by the more economically powerful language speakers.

I was just thinking that an article titled "Languages in the United States" would be more about the languages in the United States both time immemorial and newly-arrived. Peace - Ish ishwar 07:59, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

English only

I added the word "only" to the box on the upper-right corner because that is what the 82.105% statistic from the census actually refers to. In other words, 82% of Americans *only speak English* at home. That is different from the percentage of people who speak English at home. (THAT percentage is a good 10-15% higher.)

native langs: first or last?

hi. I suggest that the indigenous languages of the US be listed before the languages that came later rather than listing the more prevalent and/or economically powerful languages first. This will do 2 things (1) be chronological time-wise and (2) list these lesser known languages more prominently. I feel that (2) is important considering that they are endangered, not known by many general readers, and are still marginalized in many different ways in wikipedia &elsewhere.

I suppose that many others have an opinion about this. Please voice them. Thank you. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 21:27, 2005 May 28 (UTC)

You are merely a propagandist. Indian languages have no status at all in the USA and are significant only so long as the Indian reservations have any influence. Those are sovereign nations and NOT what we call American. I am no more a Sioux than they are Americans. You are treading on thin ice and should be grateful that they are even listed here. Keep these languages where they BELONG, which is on their reservations or minute communities. I myself have listed German before Spanish, because of the timeline of American assimilation over these peoples. In no way, were Indian tribes a part of the US before Louisiana. See what I mean?

posted by ScapegoatVandal (talk · contribs), 00:05, 29 May 2005 (sig added by — mark ✎)

Ignore the unsigned troll above... and, while I have no especially strong opinion on this, I find the chronological argument to be fairly compelling. - Mustafaa 01:15, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with ishwar and Mustafaa. — mark ✎ 01:25, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the chronological argument too, pre-colonial langauses should follow directly after the section on the official language--nixie 02:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would agree with the proposal, to list the languages indigenous to the region/country before, or at least more prominently than currently featured. Reasons include: the reader might commonly come across this page in search of them; a chronologically-based ordering is usual in the absence of some other schema (eg alphabetically); there is a ranking side-list by number of speakers anyway; historical listing is more informative and if done could assist a future addition to the page describing the interactions and spread of the differing languages over time; as they are comparatively little-known, but feature significantly in conducted linguistic research their prominence needs to be more than just an addendum. --cjllw | TALK 08:19, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)

Yes, I think official and national languages (read "English" in this case) should come first, indigenous languages second, and immigrant languages and local developments such as creoles third. Also, within the indigenous languages, I think Hawaiian should go last. It's mentioned as an official language, so it's not like it'll get lost, and it's both rather recent historically (as a Usonian possession, I mean, not as a language) and rather marginal geographically ("marginal" in the literal sense of "at the margins"). It seems wrong to place it before Iroquois or Algonquian. Speaking of which, are we going to recognize Samoan? Chamoro? American Samoans are citizens in all but name, and the Marianas (incl. Guam) are clear Usonian possessions and will probably soon be upgraded to commonwealths. Maybe the division could be Continental languages and Pacific languages or something along those lines? kwami 07:29, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

Since everyone seems to be in agreement, and no one's commented in the past week, I've made the change. Ishwar, was this what you had in mind? I broke things up a bit: if we have a separate entry for every single colonial language, I figured we should have separate entries for at least the more populous native languages. (I also tried to research the numbers a little better, using the resources listed at the bottom of the article.) Also, I listed official languages of the territories and commonwealths, and created a new category for languages that developed here. Not saying this is how it should be, it's just what made sense to me, since no one else had gone for it. kwami 21:44, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)

yes, i think that this an improvement — more informative. so, yes, it is basically what i had in mind. one of these days i will need to locate the most recent article by Michael Krauss (or some other linguist) to report further on the endangerment issue. peace – ishwar  (speak) 05:16, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

I hate the way this looks so retarded. I warned you the first time. It is too PC. ScapegoatVandal 02:12, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ummm, hey guys, I'm kind of new, so I won't take any sides, but I want to voice my opinion. The preservation of Native American languages is vital, I agree, but they are far too numerous and varied. I don't know anyone who would bother taking the time to list all of them. I think a simple solution would be to just link to the Ethnologue entry for the USA. Eric 05:43, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Chinese language census

Says the 2000 census was printed in "Chinese". Anyone know if that's Mandarin or Cantonese? (And no, the written languages are not the same.) kwami 05:53, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

Cantonese. Of the 1.65 million reported daily speakers of "Chinese", 1.3 million of them actually converse in Cantonese, specifically. The rest are made up of people who prelect in Han(Mandarin) Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Min Nan Chinese, Yue Chinese, Hokkien Chinese, etc. They constitute a much smaller composite. Eric 06:06, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

I knew that most Chinese Americans were Cantonese, but it didn't follow that the census would be written in Cantonese. (BTW, Mandarin is not the same as Han.) kwami 08:57, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

Got word back from someone in the census bureau that they've "been told" that the forms were in Mandarin. (Traditional characters.) Unless someone has specific info to the contrary? Meanwhile I've made the change. kwami 18:31, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

I wonder whether kwami or Eric speaks any kind of mentioned Chinese casually. When I traveled to Singapore from Taiwan, I spoke Min Nan Chinese (which Singaporean says it is Kokkien. Malaysian-Chinese decendents call it Kokkien too)to an India-Singaporean taxi cabbie. The Cabbie answered me with three languages: English, Min Nan Chinese and a little Hakka. (I believe he speaks Indian and Malay too). Min is ancient name of Hokkien (now Fujian Province).

Min Nan is southern part of Min. Thus Min Nan and Hokkien map to the same language.

If what Eric outlined Yue Chinese implied the language spoken in Eastern China region(Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou), that probably is a decent description. "Yue" is ancient name of Zhejiang Province of China today. Yet, language from those three areas are completely illiterate to regular Mandarin Chinese speakers. BTW, Han Chinese is vague to me. If it implied Chinese pronounced in ancient Chinese (Han Dynasty, 202 BC to 220 AD), that can be found just in Korean or Japanese of Hanzi (Kanji, Japanese, means Chinese characters) part.

Try "google search" for "Map of Seuol" you will find Kangnam-Gu (In Mandarin, Jiang-nan Qu, River-South District. Three Chinese characters all in all). Kangnam-Gu in Min Nan Chinese or Hokkien Chinese are exactly the same. Other districts like Kangbo-Gu, Dongjak-Gu, and Kangdong-Gu are pronounced exactly the same as current Min Nan Chinese (all Taiwanese called it Taiwanese in Taiwan). Those places names in Seuol Korea are Han Chinese pronunication indeed.

Kangnam-Gu (Korean or Min Nan Chinese) in Onn-yo-mi (Phonetic pronunciation) of Japanese would become Kou-nan-ku, which may derived (actually imported) from ancient "Yue" language.

Once I used Min Nan Chinese to read Tang Poems (Tang Dynasty, 7th-9th century)to a visitor from Los Angeles, who is a Vietnamese-Ameican. He echoed me the same Tang Poem with Vietnamese where at least 80% was literate to me, and vice versa. We exchanged several other famous poems and concluded the same feeling. Could I suggest Vietnamese Chinese is another kind of Chinese? [Vincent Wen-Sen Tsai, or Wen-Sheng Cai, July 24, 2006 ]

Dutch-Americans

I have written the 'Dutch-American' section, taking the historical notes from the article "Dutch colonization of the Americas", while writing the rest myself. Contributions welcome. Eric 07:31, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Swedish-Americans

As with naturalized Dutch-Americans, I have also written the Swedish-American sub-article. Additions are encouraged. Eric 07:31, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

German-Americans

There were some incorrect statistical information which I replaced with confirmed and accurate demographic facts. Eric 07:31, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

American spelling?

Is there any strict unwritten constitutional rule that we must adhere to American lexicon and spelling? Someone frequently keeps morphing my British spellings with American ones. Eric 07:38, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Usually if an article is started with one orthography, that is kept through all edits. Also, if an article's specifically UK- or US-related, people tend to feel it should be in that orthography. Though, personally, I think the humor articles should be "British humor" and "American humour". kwami 09:02, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I feel inclined towards British spelling most of the time. In reference to your corcern about the spelling of 'humor', isn't the British spelling 'humour', in actuality? Eric 10:39, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the beauty of it ... Cbdorsett 15:28, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'll try to adhere to the American style of semantics and spelling in subsequent edits. :) Eric 15:33, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

re humour-humor: yes, that's funny.

re my personal note: i dont have any problems with mixed language variety styles in any writing. seeing both British & American spelling in the same article is fun for me. (standardized languages... oh well) peace – ishwar  (speak) 05:27, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC)

Me either. For some words I don't know which is which; I just set my spellchecker to accept both. But if our goal is to make Wikipedia respectable, each article should probably follow some standard. kwami 05:48, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC)

Immigrant languages

Where did the author obtain the numbers for immigrant languages? The table in this very same article said that Vietnamese is spoken by 0.385%, Tagalog by 0.467%, while Korean by 0.341%. Yet the section on immigrant languages list Korean as being spoken by 1.8 million while Vietnamese by 0.8 million, and Tagalog not listed. See Language Spoken at Home (U.S._Census) and [4]. If there is no information to back this up, I'm going to change it according to census data. DHN 01:24, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Edited to reflect census data [5]. DHN 01:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Immigrant vs. Colonial languages

As currently structured, this privileges a view of U.S. history that treats the English- and Dutch- speaking Atlantic colonies as the central narrative to the exclusion of Spanish and French colonies incorporated into what is now the United States. Finnish and Scottish Gaelic are allowed because they were spoken early in New Sweden and on the frontiers of British North America, respectively, but Tagalog is not, despite Filipino presence in New Spain as early as 1587 (a landing in Spanish ships at Morro Bay, California) and, in 1763, a permanent settlement in French Louisiana. Similarly, Galician was almost certainly regularly spoken within the frontiers of the present-day U.S. - in Nuevo Mexico before Welsh. I propose an alternate division—aboriginal languages, followed by earliest known communities speaking that language by century, starting with the 16th, if, that is, the language is still spoken in the U.S. today. No need for Old Norse. Satyadasa 08:05, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I think this may be a good idea, except that I see no reason to ignore a language because it's no longer spoken. If it was notable for its time, we should have it.

The change wouldn't be very great. Colonial would simply be up to the time of independence. However, Tagalog still might not be included, because it wasn't spoken in what was then US. kwami 06:49, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The USA have no official language, sorry have two official languages...

Quote 1: "The United States does not have an official language" Quote 2: "both Spanish and English have the status of official language" So?--196.40.40.179 03:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Where are you getting that from? The U.S. definitely does not have an official language at the federal level. At the state level, it's a huge mess, though many states have adopted English as their official language. --Coolcaesar 05:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Does Louisiana have any official languages?

See http://www.louisiana.gov/wps/portal/.cmd/cs/.ce/155/.s/3987/_s.155/1135/_me/1135-1133/_mc/3313 - You'd think if Louisiana had an official language, it would list it with its official songs and bird and dog and flower. I'm going to edit out Louisiana from the list of states and territories that are officially bilingual. If someone can provide a citation for official languages of Louisiana, please re-list it. (Note: I don't edit much, so I hope nobody thinks this is rude... If so, sorry. I'm only editing to be cautious.) Bugmuncher 03:49, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually no. Government web sites (US or otherwise) almost never list official languages. I forget where this info came from, but it was the same source as all the other states. Maybe the World Almanac? kwami 04:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Expansion

Hey, it seems that multiple sections, including (but not limited to!) the Sign languages section need quite a bit of expansion. I've tagged the sign languages section as such, but lots of these sections look really short, and while we don't need to make them particularly long, more than just a sentence or two might be beneficial. --T. S. Rice 07:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I would say this article need general wikifying more then content changes. 須藤 05:18, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Article cited by academic publication

This wikipedia page was cited by an article in a current academic journal: Ross E. Mitchell, Travas A. Young, Bellamie Bachleda, Michael A. Karchmer. How Many People Use ASL in the United States? Why Estimates Need Updating. Sign Language Studies 6.3 (2006) 306-335.

The authors discuss the lack of reliable data on the number of ASL users and the widely disparate estimations made on the web (100,000 to 15,000,000). They conclude that no reliable estimate of the number of signers exists, and that most estimates can be traced to two unreliable studies in the 1970s. This wikipedia article, when it was accessed by the author (November 9, 2004), suggested that ASL ranked somewhere between 3rd-most and 10th-most used language in the USA.

Hugs to the contributors to this page! :) ntennis 04:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

official language

this article has somewhat of a different list to English-only movement which says that english is official in hawaii, louisiana and new mexico (along with hawaiian, french and spanish respectivly) - here its 'hawaiian english' not english, it says that louisiana has no official language & new mexico isnt listed). Also Alaska is mentioned there as having the "1998 Official English amendment was overturned" and is not listed as having english as an official language --Astrokey44 11:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

German as Pennsylvania's "second official language"

Removed from the article:

"German, although not widely spoken, was the second official language of Pennsylvania until 1950, and"

As far as I can determine, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has never had an official language at all, thus certainly can't have a second one. I would be thrilled if it were true, but apparently it is not. Facts:

• The US census of 1790 found that 25.45% of Pennsylvanians were of "German nationality".
• A Library of Congress exhibit claims that, in 1790, 33% of Pennsylvanians spoke German. This seems to be the maximum proportion of Pennsylvanians who ever spoke German.
• A bill to establish an official language passed Pennsylvania's house in June, and was referred to the Senate's committee on state government. It would seem clear that there is no official language currently.
• My searches at state.pa.gov found no establishment or repeal of an official language of Pennsylvania. It would seem clear that there was never an official language.

Was the writer's intent simply to claim that Pennsylvania had a significant proportion, or at least a significant number, of German speakers until about 1950? I don't know. The burden of proof is not on me. Certainly the German language is significant in Pennsylvania's history, but this is not the right way to say it, and probably not the right place to say it. Unfortunately the "second official language" claim has already spread to the article on Pennsylvania. --Hoziron 15:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

4.7 million German speakers?

Where does this article get its statistic that 10% of German-descended Americans are able to speak German? Even if this includes every person who studied the language for one semester in high school, I doubt the number could be that large. Does it include every G.I. who learned a few curse words while stationed in Germany? This may sound sarcastic but it's not. I speak German and rarely meet another German speaker in the States outside my own family: outside of a smattering of Lutheran churches and a few university Goethe houses, the language barely survives at all except in Pennsylvania. Durova 21:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Umm... from the US Census??? It's what we call a home language mostly, that is, nowadays it is typically spoken by adults with their elderly parents. I'm sure that the number of German speakers in the US will probably have been more than halved by the next census. --Node 14:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Gaelic

The map purporting to show the distribution of Scottish Gaelic actually shows (if its title is correct) the distribution of Irish Gaelic. Angr 07:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

...or else it's supposed to show Irish Gaelic. Gàidhlig probably wouldn't have many North American speakers outside Nova Scotia, though. It's more likely to be Gaeilge shown on the map. -- the GREAT Gavini 15:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Tagalog

Why isn't Tagalog mentioned in either colonial language or pre-colonial language sections. It had speakers living in Lousiana during the colonial era and it became an official language in the Commonwealth of the Philippines, a former territory of the U.S..23prootie 22:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was PAGE MOVED per reasonable request, no objection. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Languages in the United States → Languages of the United States – Naming conventions, consistency -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 14:56, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support per nomination. -  AjaxSmack  05:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
• No opposition. -Will Beback 06:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral. It is a matter of no importance at all. —Angr 16:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.