OT: english language

OT: english language (Full Version)

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pauk -> OT: english language (5/8/2007 4:42:59 PM)
hi all, i'm doing research about USA in revolution and post revolution era and i need references (links, etc) how english become 'official' (or better to say primary) language in the US. I'm refering to famous "German lose out to English by just one vote?"... but it seems that this could be a myth... i would appriciate any inputs, info links, thoughts etc!

WhoCares -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 5:02:32 PM)
It's apparently a myth, called the Muhlenberg legend: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Jwcrawford/question.htm http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.htm quote: There was never an attempt to make German the official language of the United States, although (1) there was a failed attempt in Congress in 1794, based on a petition of German residents of Augusta Co., Virginia, to have "a certain proportion" of the laws of the United States printed in German as well as English, and (2) beginning in 1828 ["Deutsche Sprache in Nordamerika", "Das Ausland" (Stuttgart: Cotta), 1 February 1828, 126-127, and 2 February 1828, 130-131], reports were circulated in the German, English, and American press of an attempt to make German an official language, (alongside English,) of Pennsylvania, an attempt that was supposedly defeated by only one vote (Arndt, however, was unable to find any bill or resolution proposing to make German the or an official language of the state of Pennsylvania). You might find more references, e.g. by seaching for things like USA congress language vote german english ...

rtrapasso -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 5:06:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: pauk hi all, i'm doing research about USA in revolution and post revolution era and i need references (links, etc) how english become 'official' (or better to say primary) language in the US. I'm refering to famous "German lose out to English by just one vote?"... but it seems that this could be a myth... i would appriciate any inputs, info links, thoughts etc! Famous? i've never heard of that before. English is the primary language as the 13 colonies (which originally formed the USA) were English colonies, administered from England, and thus the laws, etc. were all in English... and i think most of the colonists were as well. Yes, there were some Dutch but not that many compared to the English. There are still enclaves of Dutch speakers today (Pennsylvania Dutch). There was a sizable influx of Germans in the 1800s (which affected politics quite a bit), but i never heard of a significant movement to make German the official language. EDIT: crossing posts... [8\|]

Q-Ball -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 5:18:26 PM)
I am not an authority, but I do have a Masters in American History. There was never any legislative attempt at a state or federal level to make any language other than English an official langauge. The only legislation is recent legislation that are localized attempts to make English the official language. (For some to counter increasing use of Spanish). But the legal and education system were all firmly English. As a research topic it might be valid to look at language use outside of English within Dutch, and later German, and even later Italian, and even later Spanish communities. But research around the extent to which langauge other than English became "official" is a dead-end topic in my opinion.

WhoCares -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 5:19:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: rtrapasso ... Dutch ... Looking for trouble, huh [sm=00000003.gif] [:'(] Thou shall not mix up Dutch and German! Dutch references to Netherland, well, more precisely Holland, and the Dutch as well as us Germans will take offense in mixing this up. [:D] What you meant is not Dutch but Deutsch P.S. I hope there are enough smilies in this post to indicate that the offense is not all that serious. And now off to kick some Dutch caravans from our Autobahns [:'(]

rtrapasso -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 5:25:02 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WhoCares quote: ORIGINAL: rtrapasso ... Dutch ... Looking for trouble, huh [sm=00000003.gif] [:'(] Thou shall not mix up Dutch and German! Dutch references to Netherland, well, more precisely Holland, and the Dutch as well as us Germans will take offense in mixing this up. [:D] What you meant is not Dutch but Deutsch P.S. I hope there are enough smilies in this post to indicate that the offense is not all that serious. And now off to kick some Dutch caravans from our Autobahns [:'(] Sorry, i was referring to New Amsterdam and its DUTCH (not German) settlers (including some of my own ancestors)... you are entirely correct about the Pennsylvania Deutsch, however. My apologies. [:o]

Mike Scholl -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 5:28:38 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: pauk hi all, i'm doing research about USA in revolution and post revolution era and i need references (links, etc) how english become 'official' (or better to say primary) language in the US. I'm refering to famous "German lose out to English by just one vote?"... but it seems that this could be a myth... i would appriciate any inputs, info links, thoughts etc! It's pure myth. You have to remember that in the 1780's almost all of the Colonists/Citizens of the US were of English decent..., the only noticable exception being a large German presence in Western Pennsylvania. All of the original documents of the nation were written in English because that was the primary language of virtually all the people of the nation. I doubt anyone even really gave any thought to the matter, any more than any citizen of England itself did.

pauk -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 5:48:30 PM)
many thanks to all! rtrapasso, i don't know for American history curriculum but if some of us in Croatia heard about this (myth)...well....[;)]

m10bob -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 8:20:17 PM)
English is our language because "we" defeated the Native Americans fair and square. (No different than any other nation anywhere else in the world.) Only real difference is, The U.S. is made up of ALL nations, and ALL racial groups and nationalities.. That is quite unique in the world.. BTW, some of my ancestors were Piankeshaw....

DSwain -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 9:08:36 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: m10bob English is our language because "we" defeated the Native Americans fair and square. (No different than any other nation anywhere else in the world.) Only real difference is, The U.S. is made up of ALL nations, and ALL racial groups and nationalities.. That is quite unique in the world.. BTW, some of my ancestors were Piankeshaw.... Interesting take on an interesting subject. The flipside is that there can be few peoples more given to migration than the British; Brits went to all four corners of the world, in fact we continue to do so. Something that some Brits forget when they moan about 'immigrants stealing our jobs' etc etc etc

mikemike -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 9:26:36 PM)
You have to remember that in the 1780's almost all of the Colonists/Citizens of the US were of English decent..., the only noticable exception being a large German presence in Western Pennsylvania. All of the original documents of the nation were written in English because that was the primary language of virtually all the people of the nation. I doubt anyone even really gave any thought to the matter, any more than any citizen of England itself did. [/quote] True .. and later waves of immigration from Germany were notable for the speed and thoroughness with which those immigrants assimilated the predominant English-language culture. If you go looking for German folklore in the U.S., all you're going to find are the Oktoberfest clones, and the Oktoberfest is merely a regional phenomenon from Bavaria and not typical of German folklore in general. German immigrants have however left their marks in parts of Texas (New Braunfels etc.) and around the Great Lakes, especially in Wisconsin. And that's a piece of good luck, for, mediocre though U.S. beer is, there is at least a solid German foundation to it (Schlitz, Coors, Anheuser, Busch!). If the U.S. brewers had taken the Brits as their inspiration, the results wouldn't bear thinking about! BTW., Pennsylvania Dutch isn't just German, but the Palatine regional dialect. Those of you who were stationed as soldiers in Germany may have heard it spoken if you were in the area around Mainz or Bitburg. It is heard all over Germany during Carnival (Karneval) time, when the TV channels will all show you nothing but people in fancy dress costumes telling jokes so stale they should by rights get them shot. It's also the mother tongue of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

DSwain -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 9:31:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mikemike True .. and later waves of immigration from Germany were notable for the speed and thoroughness with which those immigrants assimilated the predominant English-language culture. If you go looking for German folklore in the U.S., all you're going to find are the Oktoberfest clones, and the Oktoberfest is merely a regional phenomenon from Bavaria and not typical of German folklore in general. German immigrants have however left their marks in parts of Texas (New Braunfels etc.) and around the Great Lakes, especially in Wisconsin. And that's a piece of good luck, for, mediocre though U.S. beer is, there is at least a solid German foundation to it (Schlitz, Coors, Anheuser, Busch!). If the U.S. brewers had taken the Brits as their inspiration, the results wouldn't bear thinking about! BTW., Pennsylvania Dutch isn't just German, but the Palatine regional dialect. Those of you who were stationed as soldiers in Germany may have heard it spoken if you were in the area around Mainz or Bitburg. It is heard all over Germany during Carnival (Karneval) time, when the TV channels will all show you nothing but people in fancy dress costumes telling jokes so stale they should by rights get them shot. It's also the mother tongue of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. There's nowt wrong with British ale, lad!!! (EDITED as I buggered up the quote function! too much ale)

pauk -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 9:34:33 PM)
Well, there is one interesting fact we can not denie... the name for the US money came from Habsburg Monarchy.... dollar (talir)... Seems that German/Austrian influence isn't so small...

dpstafford -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 9:48:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mikemike BTW., Pennsylvania Dutch isn't just German, but the Palatine regional dialect. Those of you who were stationed as soldiers in Germany may have heard it spoken if you were in the area around Mainz or Bitburg. It is heard all over Germany during Carnival (Karneval) time, when the TV channels will all show you nothing but people in fancy dress costumes telling jokes so stale they should by rights get them shot. It's also the mother tongue of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Can you tell us more about german/austrian dialects, and how they relate to "high" german?

tsimmonds -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 9:50:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: m10bob BTW, some of my ancestors were Piankeshaw.... Damn, an actual native Hoosier....[;)]

Oleg Mastruko -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 10:31:06 PM)
I did hear the "German lost for one vote" legend from several people so I kinda agree with Pauk that it is "famous", at least in Europe. (Even though we're both Croats I fail to see why this bizarre "legend" would take root only in Croatia?). It always sounded quite unbelievable and urban legend-ish to me, and it wasn't hard finding evidence that it is indeed a case of overblown historical misunderstanding. This site specialised in debunking myths has a page on this: http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.htm

kaleun -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 10:57:00 PM)
Great avatar, Oleg!

Oleg Mastruko -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 11:04:49 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kaleun Great avatar, Oleg! That's not avatar. I programmed my web camera to take pictures of me sitting in front of my computer and automatically send updated pictures for my profile! Who says blondes are dumb?

captskillet -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 11:16:18 PM)
Oleg you've had an 'operation' I guess cause the pics I've seen of you in the past and the babe in your avatar aint even in the same ballpark........no offense [;)] [:D] !

Terminus -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 11:41:33 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko quote: ORIGINAL: kaleun Great avatar, Oleg! That's not avatar. I programmed my web camera to take pictures of me sitting in front of my computer and automatically send updated pictures for my profile! Who says blondes are dumb? You're sitting in front of your PC in a really awkward and non-ergonomic position...

Big B -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 11:47:20 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko I did hear the "German lost for one vote" legend from several people so I kinda agree with Pauk that it is "famous", at least in Europe. (Even though we're both Croats I fail to see why this bizarre "legend" would take root only in Croatia?). It always sounded quite unbelievable and urban legend-ish to me, and it wasn't hard finding evidence that it is indeed a case of overblown historical misunderstanding. This site specialised in debunking myths has a page on this: http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.htm It IS a well spread "urban legend" becuase I have heard it before, and so has about everyone I have met (that is - those who are interested and inclined to think about history - instead of being glued to MTV). Your guess is as good as mine as to where and when it(the rumor)came from, but I have a clue as to it's origin. I am 50, and like I said above - the rumor has been heard by everyone I basically know... and those younger.. BUT my parents never heard that baloney until the last 20 years or so. So I am guessing it was spread by some party with an interest in redefining America as a non-Eglish basic culture... In other words, some PC type...(take your pick)

Terminus -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 11:48:41 PM)
"Some PC type"? That narrows it down... NOT!

Big B -> RE: OT: english language (5/8/2007 11:54:58 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Terminus "Some PC type"? That narrows it down... NOT! I said "take your pick" [:D]

Terminus -> RE: OT: english language (5/9/2007 12:26:40 AM)
I don't want any of them...

rogueusmc -> RE: OT: english language (5/9/2007 12:50:27 AM)
America has no 'official' language...hence the printing of voting ballots and everything else in a number of languages.

rtrapasso -> RE: OT: english language (5/9/2007 1:02:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: pauk many thanks to all! rtrapasso, i don't know for American history curriculum but if some of us in Croatia heard about this (myth)...well....[;)] Regional appeal, perhaps... i've studied American history for most of my life (as an avocation) - and i am over 50 - i had never heard of it. Snopes' website had the best explanation of the whole business, i think: "This most famous of language legends began when a group of German-Americans from Augusta, Virginia, petitioned Congress, and in response to their petition a House committee recommended publishing three thousand sets of laws in German and distributing them to the states (with copies of statutes printed in English as well). The House debated this proposal on 13 January 1795 without reaching a decision, and a vote to adjourn and consider the recommendation at a later date was defeated by one vote, 42 to 41. There was no vote on an actual bill, merely a vote on whether or not to adjourn. Because the motion to adjourn did not pass, the matter was dropped. It was from this roll call on adjournment that the "German missed becoming the official language of the USA by one vote" legend sprang."

m10bob -> RE: OT: english language (5/9/2007 1:09:24 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: irrelevant quote: ORIGINAL: m10bob BTW, some of my ancestors were Piankeshaw.... Damn, an actual native Hoosier....[;)] Actually that is one of my "claims to fame"..Go over to the library on the groundfloor of the State Capital Building and you will see my white ancestors were in George Rogers Clark's army..(They were his cousins), William A.Clark being my progenitor was also in the later battle of Tippecanoe!)..After the revolutionary war, all of Clarks' army were given land grants in the vicinity of Vincennes, and my relatives still farm in the Bruceville/Bicknell area..All the Clarks down there are my 2nd cousins.. The Piankeshaws intermarried with the Clark family as a means to perpetuate their race as they were gradually being killed off by whites from Kentucky mistaking them for Shawnee. The Piankeshaw were all friends of Clark and his army. Any wonder I was a Ranger?? Its' blood.................[;)]

tsimmonds -> RE: OT: english language (5/9/2007 1:29:49 AM)
That's interesting; I just finished "Long Knife" by James Thom. Great read. If the book is even halfway factual, GR Clark was an amazing man, and an "undersung" American hero. Good choice for ancestors, m10bob!

mikemike -> RE: OT: english language (5/9/2007 1:43:21 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dpstafford Can you tell us more about german/austrian dialects, and how they relate to "high" german? I'm not a language specialist, so what I can tell you is not the whole story. "Hochdeutsch" or "High German" or Standard German is how we Germans believe the written language should be correctly pronounced. I needn't tell you that hardly anybody outside the media and the stage really speaks a clean High German. The people in the Hannover area think they do; we others think there are issues with their "st" and "sp" diphtongs. High German is most closely related to the North German dialects (Niederdeutsch or Low German), which are spoken in the coastal plains area of Germany from the Polish border west to the Netherlands - Dutch is originally a North German dialect, although the modern Dutch will vehemently deny this. There are a number of other dialect groups, for instance the Allemannic dialects spoken in Southwest Germany/Alsace/Switzerland (of which the Palatine dialect - and its transatlantic derivative Pennsylvania Dutch- is a part), the Bavarian/Austrian group, the Rhenish dialects and others. The point is, these dialects are more than just regional colorations of standard German, they differ in vocabulary, grammar and pronounciation. The dialect spoken, for instance, on the North Sea islands and the one from the German/Swiss border are perhaps more different than Spanish and Portuguese. However, people speaking regional dialects will usually also speak standard or High German with more or less of a regional coloration. You can usually tell a Bavarian speaking Standard German from a Saxon or someone from Berlin, just as Americans can tell if they are talking with someone from New England or the South or California. You might say that most Germans have two language layers - Standard German and the regional dialect, which is unusual linguistically. This has practical consequences. Take Swiss German as an example: if a Swiss makes the effort to speak Standard German you will probably understand him quite well if you can understand the kind of German taught in school, but if he switches to the Swiss German dialect you'll be lost - a British author once likened it to switching on a scrambler. The Swiss TV German news actually show German subtitles if Swiss German is spoken. You can probably read all this far more cogently in the Wikipedia. And now for some light relief: in answer to DSwains message I'd like to remark that British ale is probably a perfect fit to British taste buds. If you have ever experienced British "Cuisine" - 'nuff said. :)))

m10bob -> RE: OT: english language (5/9/2007 2:45:21 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: irrelevant That's interesting; I just finished "Long Knife" by James Thom. Great read. If the book is even halfway factual, GR Clark was an amazing man, and an "undersung" American hero. Good choice for ancestors, m10bob! I had no say in the matter.. After deros, I had some time on my hands and decided to spend a lot of it doing what the Army taught me to do..Research.. I looked up my family tree 'cuz I figured nobody else in my family might get the chance. It was pretty easy for a "new guy", and I started helping others with theirs.. Everybody is related to heroes, and "horsethieves".. Everybody.......

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