The USA has NO Official language

Damian   Fri Jun 20, 2008 8:30 pm GMT
***@Damian
Are you drunk or just stupid?***

Well, I had knocked off a bottle of Chablis, a bottle of Merlot, six double Vladivars, four Malibus, seven Belhaven 90 shillings - and all accompanied by fourteen Glenfiddich chasers, and only last week my IQ was assessed at -26. So there's your answer!

Talking about minimum drinking age - it's 18 eveywhere in the UK for buying drinks in pubs or off licences (ie shops and stores which sell alcohol for consumption off the premises), but the Scottish Parliament is now going to raise the age, in Scotland only, to 21 for buying alcohol in shops and stores and supermarkets, but it will remain at 18 for buying it in pubs, as far as I understand at the minute.

***Damian can always be counted on to add a huge dose of civility, humor and good information. Maybe as a Scot it's easier to remain above the fray, but I always appreciate his post***.

Cheers! Nice of you to say so. I'm not sure my Scottish nationality has very much to do with the way I post, but maybe much to do with what I say! For all its problems I do love my country, or two countries if Scotland and the UK are being discussed separately. I'm one of the sizeable majority of Scots who never wish to see a Scottish breakaway from the United Kingdom. I needn't worry - it just won't happen.

Regarding the French - I still haven't had time to stand on a platform at Haymarket train station here in Edinburgh to hear the famous French guy doing all the train departures and arrivals announcements - so far I've had to make do with the recordings on BBC Radio Five Live. He seemed to be fine announcing all those Scottish place names! Well done him!
Amabo   Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:43 pm GMT
English belongs just as much to Americans (Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis, South Africans, Indians etc., etc.) as it does to Englishmen.

Indeed, most native English speakers are Americans.
Guest   Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:51 pm GMT
Presumably the reason the US has no "official language" is that, as an English-speaking country from the get-go, it never had any particular need to assert such a concept.
Amabo   Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:52 pm GMT
Oops!

Last item was mine!
Guest   Sat Jun 21, 2008 7:55 pm GMT
America wasn't an English speaking country from the get-go ... New England was English, New York City and North New Jersey spoke Dutch, South Jersey and Pennsylvania spoke Swedish and German, the whole Louisiana area spoke French, etc. During the immigrant days the language regions changed ... Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, etc. There's a reason why the US isn't exactly a unified country like you get in Europe.
Romanian   Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:17 pm GMT
Official or not, it doesn't matter, the importance is who regulates the language.

As you might know, in most European countries there is an official lingvistic body (Academy) that regulates the language on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar.

French - L'Académie française -
Portuguese - Academia das Ciências de Lisboa
Romanian - Academia Romana de Lingvistica
Italian - Accademia della Crusca
Spanish - Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española
German - Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung
Polish - Rada Języka Polskiego
ETC.

English - None official.

What it worries me, is British English not being regulated by any lingvistic Academy, and being victimised by the hundreds of regional British accents, some uncultivated colloquialisms penetrating the literary language. Same scenario regarding AME Version. The language is a cultural patrimonium and it should be regulated as such.

Why English has no official Academic body?
Guest   Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:41 pm GMT
Why English has no official Academic body?


Not sure, why not just ask someone from Wales, Scottland or Ireland?
Amabo   Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:58 am GMT
"America wasn't an English speaking country from the get-go ... New England was English, New York City and North New Jersey spoke Dutch, South Jersey and Pennsylvania spoke Swedish and German, the whole Louisiana area spoke French, etc. During the immigrant days the language regions changed ... Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, etc. There's a reason why the US isn't exactly a unified country like you get in Europe."

Sorry, no. By the time the American Revolution occurred, the Thirteen Colonies were, to all practical purposes, English-speaking. Louisiana was purchased later and its French-speaking population nearly entirely assimilated. One of the ways those immigrants that came in later were "Americanized" was their eventual adoption of - English.

And I don't know quite what dope you've been smoking but most European countries strike me as no more "unified" than the US is. Indeed, many are far less "unified."
Amabo   Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:59 am GMT
"Why English has no official Academic body?"

Because it doesn't need one.
Travis   Sun Jun 22, 2008 4:11 am GMT
>>
***They don't need to make their language official at home***

That's a misleading statement. English is not THEIR Language! It's their adopted Language - many, many Americans have no direct connection with the true home of the English Language - England....Americans whose descendents originated elsewhere on the planet.<<

Yes and no. Yes, a vast portion of the US population today has no connections with England at all. But on the other hand, people who settled here who did not already speak English did not learn and adopt English as a language "on loan" from the English; rather, they learned English as the national language of the US.

>>When in America, either living there or just visiting, many Brits experience mixed emotions when told by the local Americans that "they speak very good English" and asked where they had learned to speak it so well. Check out the British Expats in the USA site if you want confirmation of this extraordinary situation.<<

On one hand, that might be a matter of ignorance on the particular individuals' part, but that it also because Americans today think of English as *their* national language and perceive standardness of English varieties in reference to their own standard General American. The do not think of English English dialects as being "more standard" or "more legitimate" than their own, and likely are actually think of them as being overall less standard than their own.
English Academy   Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:02 am GMT
>>"Why English has no official Academic body?"
Because it doesn't need one.<<

You are an idiot mate, no surprise English is a spelling mess, chaotic gramar with americanisms and britishisms that conflict. English is crying for an academic body to clean the junk and standardise the spelling mess.

Please help your children learn a decent language, and help yourself to spell it right without a spell checker.
Travis   Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:22 am GMT
The matter, though, is just whose dialect is any given standard orthography for all of English going to favor? I doubt many Americans are going to care much for one that merely codifies Received Pronunciation, and I likewise doubt many Britons are going to care much for one that merely codifies General American - and if one is not going to one of those two, then one will have to design a highly crossdialectal orthography, which will in and of itself be very difficult both to design and learn...
Johnny   Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:29 am GMT
I suggest IPA as the standard spelling. That'd be cool
Guest   Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:42 am GMT
Then it'd be even more chaotic than the present spelling.
Damian   Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:39 am GMT
mjd:

I humbly yield to what you said!

Maybe I need to stop relying too much on the information I get from that much quoted (by me) website British Expats in the USA, but I have to say that a fair wee number of them have been taken aback by some of the comments made by some Americans they have met over there who appear to genuinely believe that the English Language is something which evolved in the USA following 1776! I know it's very difficult to think that could be true but that's what some of the Brits have said in their posts on the site, so unless they are born liars or are mentally defective in some way (highly unlikely!) I take what they say as factual. In my job that can be pretty hazardous, believe me when I say that! ;-)

OK - let's pinpoint everything down to that prime date in American History - 04/07/1776 OR, as you understand it - 07/04/1776! Consider the Declaration of American Independence Dpocument:

At the signing of the Declaration of Independence the new established "States of America" were represented as follows:

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton


Every single name (with the possible exception of the last name Paca, in Maryland) is thoroughly British, and many such names are found all over the UK today. Indeed, many of the signatories of that document were actually Scotsmen, and i can also see three names which suggest the guys came from Wales originally.

In the light of all this, I truly concede that you guys have every right to claim the English Language as genuinely YOURS! It's yours to do what you like with, and that you certainly have done....in your own inimitable way! ;-)

It all adds to the richness and variety of OUR common Language!

Now I'm off out to meet some of my mates where we can all communicate in our own variety of the Language - basically Scots, with a touch of our own version of Scottish style RP, with maybe just a hint of Scottish style Estuary in some of us. What an amazingly interesting Language we all share! Cheers!