What is the future of English in the USA?

At least here in Milwaukee, the overall picture of language usage disagrees with both the idea that Spanish is taking over and the idea that Spanish is negligible in extent. On one hand, there is a significant Spanish-speaking population here today. Furthermore, businesses in the last several years have significantly shifted towards being bilingual in English and Spanish in written materials aside from outside signs (and outside signs in Spanish are common on the near South Side).

At the same time, the vast majority of the non-Latino portion of the population does not speak Spanish at all (and aside from some recent Asian and European immigrants and their families and some very old people is effectively English-monolingual), and Latinos here are not normally Spanish-monolingual but rather bilingual in Spanish and English. Furthermore, the Spanish-speaking population is limited to what was the old Polish neighborhood on the near South Side, the Poles having since moved to the suburbs and assimilated into the rest of the white population there. Despite the recent spread of Spanish-language usage in businesses, there seems to be practically no spread of actual usage of Spanish in everyday life outside of first-generation immigrants who already speak Spanish.

Note that there are other languages spoken in the area, but they are rather limited, being primarily Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Hmong spoken by first generation immigrants and their families; German and Russian spoken by first generation immigrants (many of whom are older in the case of German, due to having fled Germany around the end of WW2); Polish spoken by some older people; and other languages spoken by first generation immigrants from various places. There are still masses held in Polish and newspapers published in Polish today (and I have even seen garbage cans with writing in Polish on them), but then practically no younger people speak it today (whereas in the case of German there are still people who are being taught German in schools today).

Note that the picture in rural areas in Wisconsin is somewhat different. They are practically English-monolingual, except for the occasional older German, Norwegian, or Polish-speaker which one might possibly encounter in some areas (German and Polish having largely survived longer in rural areas than in the cities), and some recent Hmong and Latino immigrants. However, many of such Hmong and Latino immigrants do not seem to have really set down roots in rural parts of Wisconsin and have since moved to other warmer parts of the US such as California, even though there are still non-negligible Hmong immigrant populations in some parts of rural Wisconsin.

English is the USA of the future in the what!

>> there seems to be practically no spread of actual usage of Spanish in everyday life outside of first-generation immigrants who already speak Spanish. <<

Exactly. It's the same here as well.

There seems to be a movement to raise Spanish to the same level as English in the US. I'm not bothered by it, in fact, I welcome it. I think that Spanish is a very important language to learn, but I wonder if there is some kind of effort by people in powerful positions to elevate Spanish to the same level of importance as English in the United States. And, if so, what is their motive? Everywhere I look, I see bilingual, Eng./Span. signs everywhere.

>> Everywhere I look, I see bilingual, Eng./Span. signs everywhere. <<

I don't. I see Korean signs everywhere, even Korean billboards.

>> There seems to be a movement to raise Spanish to the same level as English in the US. <<

How so? It certainly is much less important around here than Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

>> even Korean billboards. <<

and not only bilingual ones at that. Some are *only* written in Korean.

Saracastic NWSTR, the PNW might be the last part of the country where Spanish is setting down roots, but travel 1000 miles to your south and in California you are basically in a Mexican state. This is throughout the Southwest and more and more in the east. The biggest problem is that anglos refuse to 'assimilate' the millions of latinos that are pouring into the country. Unlike the past waves of Germans, Poles, Scandinavians, Italians, or whatever, because of racism or some other factor latinos are not being assimilated. And they never will. They seem to be assimilating the English speaking population. You can't have a mass of people, millions of them, and leave them to the lowest positions in society. Spanish thrives because Anglos are disgusted by Spanish speakers and all that they represent. This is a pressure cooker. Spanish speakers cleave to their own and have formed their own little universe in this country. Watch a newscast on Univision and you will see what i'm talking about it. All of that media will not die out.

Mark,

Why don't you travel in Mexico along the US border that almost all of them speak English fluently.

Y un huevo!!!!

Y un huevo!!!!

And an egg!!!!

And an egg!!!!

>>The biggest problem is that anglos refuse to 'assimilate' the millions of latinos that are pouring into the country. Unlike the past waves of Germans, Poles, Scandinavians, Italians, or whatever, because of racism or some other factor latinos are not being assimilated.<<

At least here, things did not happen exactly like that. The original northeasterners who settled here (French trappers aside) were basically swamped by German immigrants, who greatly outnumbered them, and for a while it was looking like Wisconsin (and other parts of the Upper Midwest) would be German-speaking land. Said northeasterners never assimilated said German immigrants themselves. But English remained the lingua franca here, even amongst German-speakers as not all Germans could understand each other's dialects, and by the 1880s the descendents of German immigrants here were generally natively bilingual in German and English. Finally, during WW1 the German-speaking institutions here were for all practical intents and purposes destroyed and a lot of pressure was put on people to assimilate, and during WW2 many remaining ties with Germany were lost. It would still take a good portion of a century, though, for German to completely die out here.

>>And they never will. They seem to be assimilating the English speaking population.<<

There might be a very large Spanish-speaking population that is being continually fed by immigration from Mexico there, but on what grounds do you think that they are actually assimilating the English-speaking population there?

>> Saracastic NWSTR, the PNW might be the last part of the country where Spanish is setting down roots, but travel 1000 miles to your south and in California you are basically in a Mexican state. This is throughout the Southwest and more and more in the east <<

Well, yes it's true that there are significant numbers of Spanish speakers in the SW, etc., but they will all be assimilated eventually. The only reason that they do not seem to be assimilated, is that masses and masses of them are pouring into certain regions.

>>Well, yes it's true that there are significant numbers of Spanish speakers in the SW, etc., but they will all be assimilated eventually. The only reason that they do not seem to be assimilated, is that masses and masses of them are pouring into certain regions.<<

Agreed completely - the only reason why Spanish is so common in such areas is because more and more people who speak Spanish keep on immigrating to them. But I assure you that their children are at least bilingual in Spanish and English (and are not necessarily guaranteed to be fluent in Spanish), and that their children's children will likely not be fluent in Spanish (and may not speak it at all).