Decline & Fall: Xenophobia makes you stupid

Courtesy of FailBlog: This is America and our only lanaguage [sic] is English; Respect are [sic] country and America’s offical [sic] language courtesy of Chicanísima; and the classic ENGLISH IS OUR LANGUAGE NO EXCETIONS [SIC] via Swam2day.

On a side note, I would like to point out that America is a nation with a Latin name, settled at least 10,000 years ago by peoples whose descendants speak languages in 55 different families.

Its 50 constituent states have names taken from Native American languages (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming), Basque (Arizona), Dutch (Rhode Island), Spanish (Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, French (Delaware, Louisiana, Vermont), German (North Carolina, South Carolina), Greek (Georgia), Latin (Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia), Hawaiian (Hawai’i), Sanskrit (Indiana) and yes, Arabic (California).

The only states with arguably English names are Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Washington.

English has never been an official US language, nor should it be. Such a law would be a First Amendment violation (not to mention the Fourteenth), and that is reason enough. The world’s many languages bring beauty, poetry and literature to our shores, and introduce concepts that cannot be spoken in English; that is reason enough. Unless you are Native American, then your ancestors were immigrants, most likely mistrusted and mistreated; breaking that cycle is reason enough.

Via FailBlog, Chicanísima, Swam2Day. Also American (word) | History of the word and List of US state name etymologies on Wikipedia; ACLU Briefing Paper Number 6 – “English Only” on The ‘Lectric Law Library.