 "Why is English not official language of US?")
United States President Donald Trump will be signing an executive order to make English the official language of the country, White House officials said on Friday (February 28). With this, the US would have an official language for the first time in its 250-year history.
However, reports do not mention when Trump is expected to sign the order. The US has never had an official language at the national level, but some states have declared English as their official language.
Let’s take a closer look.
Trump to make English US’ official language
President Trump’s order designating English the official language of the country will give the US its federally recognised national language for the first time in its history.
The Washington Post reported citing a draft White House fact sheet that Trump’s order will revoke a policy from 2000 signed by the then President Bill Clinton “that required agencies and recipients of federal funding to provide extensive language assistance to non-English speakers.”
Government agencies will be allowed to decide whether they want to continue to offer documents and services in languages other than English, as per the fact sheet.
It added “but [the order] encourages new Americans to adopt a national language that opens doors to greater opportunities.”
The White House said this “promotes unity, establishes efficiency in government operations, and creates a pathway for civic engagement,” reported Associated Press (AP).
Reactions to Trump’s English order
Trump’s intention to declare English as the official language of the US has received mixed reactions.
“This is HUGE,” Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist, wrote on social media. “In an era of mass immigration, asserting that the English language as the American language, is a message of national UNITY.”
However, the planned White House order prompted outrage from pro-immigration groups and Democratic leaders.
“This isn’t just an offensive gesture that sticks a thumb in the eye of millions of US citizens who speak other languages, but also will directly harm those who have previously relied on language assistance for vital information,” Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, an advocacy group for immigration reform, told AP in an email.
Democratic Representative Adriano Espaillat, who will deliver the Spanish-language response to Trump’s joint address to the US Congress on Tuesday, said the order could reduce the country’s global competitiveness.
“Of course, we would like to see the details of the executive action, but it’s mind-boggling if the intent is to suppress the ability of our young people to be proficient in other languages. I think that doesn’t make us competitive as a country,” Espaillat was quoted as saying by The Washington Post.
United We Dream, a youth-led group, pointed out that the US has never designated an official language in its history.
“We mean this with all disrespect: No gracias,” Anabel Mendoza, the group’s communications director, said, as per New York Times (NYT). “We see exactly what Trump is trying to do by continuing to put a target on the backs of Black and brown immigrants and communities who speak different languages, and we won’t tolerate it.”
Why US doesn’t have official language
America has not had an official language in the roughly 250 years since the country was founded.
Scholars say that when the US was founded, most people spoke English and those who wrote the country’s constitution did not feel it was necessary to make it an official language. They also did not want to alienate citizens who spoke other languages.
“The Founding Fathers didn’t see a need to declare one,” Dr Wayne Wright, a professor at Purdue University, told CNN in 2018.
“English was pretty much the dominant language of the United States at the time so there really wasn’t a need to protect it. And they didn’t want to offend their fellow Americans who helped fight for independence.”
People in the US have been speaking languages other than English even before the founding of the republic.
According to the US Census Bureau, around 68 million (6.8 crore) of the country’s 340 million (34 crore) population speak a language other than English, including over 160 Native American tongues.
The US has more than 350 spoken languages, as per the Bureau’s data. Besides English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Arabic are the most common languages spoken in the country.
Over 30 states in the US have already adopted English as their official language, according to ProEnglish, a group advocating English as an official language .
Is the move linked to immigration?
Trump has for long supported adopting English as the official language of the US.
During his first term as American president in 2021, he tried a similar bid to declare English as the official language but failed.
In 2015, Trump mocked his rival, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, for speaking Spanish while election campaigning. “He should really set an example by speaking English in the United States,” he said during the 2016 campaign trail.
“This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish,” Trump asserted.
Even during the campaign trail last year, Trump reiterated concerns about migrants coming to the US speaking foreign languages.
“We have languages coming into our country. We don’t have one instructor in our entire nation that can speak that language,” Trump said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last year. “These are languages — it’s the craziest thing — they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing.”
Since returning to the White House on January 20, the Republican has made it his priority to curb immigration.
As per NYT, Trump’s planned order will be the “biggest victory” for the English-only movement, which has opposed bilingual education and made efforts to reduce immigration to the US.
However, the expected move has raised concerns about its potential impact on naturalised citizens or elderly residents who are not fluent in English.
“It will make it harder for them to participate civically and vote, as well as access critical healthcare, economic and education resources,” APIAVote, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on registering Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, told AP in a statement.
The group also warned that this step could make anyone who speaks a different language a target. “The exclusionary nature of this policy will only fuel xenophobia and discrimination at a time when anti-Asian hate and hate against other minority and immigrant groups are rising.”
With inputs from agencies
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