64 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
64 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
>From: cindy@solan10.solan.unit.no (Cynthia Kandolf)
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Subject: Return of the US Language UL
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Message-ID: <CINDY.92Jul12184324@solan10.solan.unit.no>
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Date: 12 Jul 92 16:43:24 GMT
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Sender: news@ugle.unit.no (NetNews Administrator)
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Distribution: alt
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Organization: /home/ludviga/cindy/.organization
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Lines: 52
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Those of you who have been around here for longer than you care
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to admit (like me) may remember the time someone brought up a legend
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about German having narrowly missed becoming the official language of
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the United States. This is a common story, and the usual cap to it
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is that Congress voted - by a majority of one vote - to make English
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the official language of the US, this significantly altering the
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course of development in the US textbook publishing industry.
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The story is false. Matter of fact, the US at present does not have
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an "official" language in the sense of a language declared by law to
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have special status; English is merely the de facto standard.
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There _was_ indeed some discussion about which language to adapt,
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with some strong seperatists arguing that English was the language
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of the "enemy". However, there were no cliff-hangers as suggested
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by the legend mentioned above; the strong seperatists were a minority
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group, and it was pretty clear from the start that most people
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considered changing from English to be too much trouble. All this
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junk was discussed the last time around, but i wanted to summarize it
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for those who weren't with us then.
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The reason for bringing this up is that i have found an incident that
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may be the source of this UL. (Drum roll.) My source is the
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_Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_, by David Crystal, published
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by the Cambridge University Press, (c)1987. In the interest of
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completeness, ISBN 0 521 26438 3.
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from page 365:
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_A planning myth_
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Probably the best-known myth in the history of language planning is
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the story that German nearly became the national language of the US in
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the 18th century, losing to English by only one vote in the
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legislature (the "Muhlenberg" legend). In fact, all that was involved
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was a request, made by a group of Virginia Germans, to have certain
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laws issued in German _as well as_ in Englih. The proposal was
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rejected by one vote, apparently cast by a German-speaking Lutheran
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clergyman, Frederick Muhlenberg (1750-1801). But the general status
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of English as the majority language was never in doubt. (After S.B.
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Heath and F. Mandabach, 1983.)
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[End quote]
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Just to show that i did my homework, the paper referred to is:
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Heath, S.B., and Mandabach, F. 1983. Language status decisions and
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the law in the United States. In J. Cobarrubias and J.A. Fishman
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(eds.), _Progress in language planning: international perspectives_
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(Berlin: Mouton), 87-105.
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-Cindy Kandolf
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cindy@solan.unit.no
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Trondheim, Norway
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