While Most U.S. Citizens Speak English, Employers Beware of Enforcing English-Only Rules

While Most U.S

While Most U.S. Citizens Speak English, Employers Beware of Enforcing English-Only Rules

Have you ever driven through the painted deserts of New Mexico or Arizona while listening to a Navajo or Dine radio station? The eerie drumming and chanting in a language so unfamiliar to non-Native Americans is an experience to treasure.While neighboring Canada has two official languages and India many, the U.S. has none. Even though most of its citizens speak English (and very few speak languages such as Navajo), this country has never chosen to designate officially just one language.Surprisingly, English was not quite as popular in the beginning of this country's history, as one might first guess. German, French, Greek and Hebrew were actually suggested as the national language, and at the time of independence, the second language spoken in the U.S. was a form of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch.For years Congress has argued on and off over declaring English the official language. Ironically, proposals to ban English surfaced shortly after the American Revolution; John Adams, our second president considered every detail in building the new nation -- even including a common language.Back then, more than 300 indigenous languages were spoken in North America, but today, only about 175 remain, with Navajo having the most speakers (some 148,500), according to communication professor, Fred E. Jandt (2010). Keeping English in the forefront has been a complicated battle with a variety of lines drawn along the way, he notes.From the 1860s until about the 1950s, federal policy and local practice actually combined to discourage and eliminate American Indian languages from schools and public settings. In the 1920, for example, students in federal boarding schools were beaten for using their own language. Yet during World War II, the language of Native Americans was critical to the military.When U.S. Marines used Navajo (formally Dine, meaning The People) 'Code Talkers' at Guadalcanal and Iwo Jim, the Japanese were never able to decipher signals encoded in the Navajo language."But it was not until 1990 that the Navajo language was given help in safeguarding, when the U.S. Congress passed the Native American Language Act that endorses preservation of indigenous languages and encourages use of American Indian languages as languages of instruction.The languages remain used in tribal politics and religious ceremonies and on radio stations, as tribes recognize linguistic survival is the same as cultural or tribal survival, Jandt states.In past years, there have been a number of Americans who considered non-Anglophones to be less than human: in 1904 a railroad president told a congressional hearing on the mistreatment of immigrant workers, "These workers don't sufferthey don't even speak English." (Shanahan,1989.)Even today there remains some opposition to non-Anglophones and bilingualsthis time directed to Hispanic and Asian Americans. The result has been the proposed English Language Amendment (ELA), a Constitutional amendment making English the official language of the United States.Scholar Dennis Barron proposes that supporters of the [English-Only measures] believe English forms the glue that keeps America together."They deplore the dollars wasted translating English into other languages. And they fear a horde of illegal aliens adamantly refusing to acquire the most powerful language on earth. On the other hand, opponents of official English remind us that without legislation we have managed to get over ninety-seven percent of the residents of this country to speak the national language. No country with an official language law even comes close."While English is clearly the main language used in the U.S., there is also recognition that help may be needed for newcomers to the U.S. in learning how to speak it; in 1974 the Supreme Court ruled in Lau vs. Nichols, a class-action suit against the San Francisco Unified Schools District, that schools that do not provide special help for children with limited English are violating these students' civil rights.The Federal Bilingual Education Act of 1978 went on to define bilingual education as a program of instruction designed for children of limited English proficiency to achieve competence in English and to progress effectively through the education system.Will the United States ever decree that English as the official language? Only time will tell.Meanwhile, an important diversity management note to employers: Since 1970, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has told employers they may not enforce English-only rules except in cases of business necessity.

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