Essay on English as an Official Language in the United States

Should English Become the Official Language in the United States? It may be a surprise for many people, but among the fifty or so countries using English as their official language the USA is not listed. The USA does not have the official language at all. After the War for Independence there was an initiative to make English the official language of the new nation, but it was brought down as undemocratic and threatening for the individual freedom. The American government back then was very particular about following the Constitution to the letter and refused everything that seemed to limit personal freedom. The USA was the nation that accepted immigrants from any other nation and any other part of the world without caring about nationality, language and religion of the newcomer. The right to speak the language of one’s choice, if one so wishes, was treated in the same way as the right to believe in whatever God one believes. However, every one or two years the initiative of making English the federally accepted official language is renewed, getting more prominent at the times of economic crises: the English-speaking citizens feel threatened by the growing rates of immigration and try to make it more difficult for the foreigners to become citizens in their turn, saving working places for the Americans. Some consider the official status of English as nation-uniting initiative; the others consider it to be anti-immigrant policy – yet, it is hard to make a downright decision on what it is. The only thing that can be said there is that nothing throughout the history of humankind reflected the ideals of freedom all the reasonable people aspire to better than the original American Constitution. Every amendment makes its modern counterpart further from that ideal; and if the Founding Fathers consider official language to be undemocratic, then it probably is.