Official Language?

In an ideal world teachers would team teach and Nests and non-Nests would team together, each reenforcing the strengths of the other.

All this talk about Nests and nonNests made me think about where is English an official language.

Although there have been attempts to make English the official language of the United States - none has ever passed through Congress.

Several states have laws designating English as the official language. Minnesota is not one of them.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 2000 Executive Order No. 13166 require that public entities receiving federal funds must have all vital documents available in every language that their clients speak

The original official languages of the United Nations were English, Chinese, French, and Russian. Spanish and Arabic were added in 1973.

Most spoken languages in the U.S.The list below is based on the 2000 US census. It shows 20 most populous languages spoken in the U.S. No indigenous language made the top 20 list. As of January 2007, the US population was 301,029,225, so the figures above will need to be adjusted upwards.

English 215,423,555 82.10%

Spanish 28,100,725 10.71%

French 1,606,790 0.61%

Mandarin 1,499,635 0.57%

German 1,382. 610 0.52%

Tagalog 1,224,245 0.46%

Vietnamese 1,009,625 0.38%

Italian 1,008,370 0.38%

Korean 894,065 0.34%

Russian 706,240 0.26%

Polish 667,415 0.25%
Arabic 614,580 0.23%

Portuguese 563,830 0.21%

Japanese 478,000 0.18%

French Creole 453,365 0.17%

Greek 365,440 0.13%

Hindi 317,055 0.12%

Persian 312,080 0.11%

Urdu 262,895 0.10%

Cantonese 259,745 0.9%

http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/USlanguages.html


State Official English Laws
Alabama (1990) – constitutional amendment adopted by voter initiative
Alaska (1998) – initiative statute; ruled unconstitutional in state superior court, March 22, 2002; full text of ruling
Arizona (2006) – constitutional amendment adopted by voter initiative. A more restrictive measure, approved by voters in 1988, was ruled unconstitutional by federal district and appellate courts, decisions vacated on March 3, 1997 by the U.S. Supreme Court; then overturned as unconstitutional by the Arizona Supreme Court on April 28, 1998; U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear English-only proponents' final appeal on January 11, 1999
Arkansas (1987) – statute
California (1986) – constitutional amendment adopted by voter initiative
Colorado (1988) – constitutional amendment adopted by voter initiative
Florida (1988) – constitutional amendment adopted by voter initiative
Georgia (1996) – statute
Hawai`i (1978) – constitutional amendment declaring the state officially bilingual – recognizing English and Native Hawaiian as official languages
Idaho (2007) – statute
Iowa (2002) – statute
Illinois (1969) – statute repealing a 1923 declaration of "American" as the official state language and adopting English
Indiana (1984) – statute
Kansas (2007) – statute
Kentucky (1984) – statute
Mississippi (1987) – statute
Missouri (1998) – statute
Montana (1995) – statute
Nebraska (1923) – constitutional amendment
New Hampshire (1995) – statute
North Carolina (1987) – statute
North Dakota (1987) – statute
South Carolina (1987) – statute
South Dakota (1995) – statute
Tennessee (1984) – statute
Utah (2000) – initiative statute; appeal by ACLU dropped
Virginia (1981) – statute, revised in 1996
Wyoming (1996) – statute English Plus Resolutions
New Mexico (1989)
Oregon (1989)
Rhode Island (1992)
Washington (1989)
NOTE: Thanks to email correspondents who have alerted me to late developments in several states. If anyone else has information on pending language legislation not listed here, I would appreciate hearing from you at jwcrawford@compuserve.com.
Copyright © 2003 by James Crawford. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce this page for free, noncommercial distribution, provided that credit is given and this notice is included. Requests for permission to reproduce in any other form should be emailed to jwcrawford@compuserve.com.

Last updated on 24 June 2008