America's Primary Language

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:02 pm

So I picked up this tidbit of information, that I can't seem to get confirmed, which probably means it's nonsense. So I'm here to present it to you guys, perhaps someone can confirm or disconfirm it; I heard that way back when America was only kneehigh to a grasshopper it had to hold a vote over which language was going to be the primary language. Obviously English won. Now comes the thing which made me remember this, because aparently the runner up was Dutch, and not only that, but English won out by only one vote.

It seems a little like too much of a coincidence, but I got curious nontheless. Does anyone know more about this?

Gunny · Post by **Gunny** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:33 pm

No clue, but now I have an urge to watch Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:40 pm

English was fairly common in the more metropolitan parts of most of the colonies.
German was a /very/ common tongue, from the large number of Dutch and German settlers...don't forget, New York and certain other colonies were founded by the Dutch first and taken over by the English later.
French was a great diplomatic language, but had fewer native speakers in the Americas.

MissTeja · Post by **MissTeja** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:44 pm

Dennis - It wasn't Dutch, it was German. English, you are correct, did beat it out by one vote, though. I looked for an article, because I had remembered hearing about this, too. There's not much in print, but I did find this.

Daki · Post by **Daki** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:49 pm

Makes you wonder how America might have entered the World Wars if German was the primary language.

Angel · Post by **Angel** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:20 pm

Daki wrote:Makes you wonder how America might have entered the World Wars if German was the primary language.

Do you think that the cultural influences of Germania would have caused more sympathy for Germany and Austria during the World Wars? Maybe like how America has historically been close to other English speaking countries since it's maturing into a nation?

Prehaps another question would be, if America had chosen German to be it's primary language at it's birth, would it have had any significant impact on other German speaking countries? And if so, do you think the World Wars would have occured in the manner which they did? Maybe American culture (thought being German speaking) might have tempered German aggression in WWI and racism before and during WWII. Interesting idea.

FlakJacket · Post by **FlakJacket** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:09 pm

Doubtful. From what I remember, Wilhelm was tired of being boxed in and continually being in third place behind Britain and France. He wanted his place in the sun as it were, both militarily and colonially. Willy didn't have to answer to anyone - that's the nice thing about being royalty - with only Bismarck being a possible mitigating influence and he agreed with it.

MooCow · Post by **MooCow** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:41 pm

English, you are correct, did beat it out by one vote, though.

Actually, according to Snopes he's wrong.

I checked snopes because the idea that we had ever voted on an official language struck me as odd, since the US doesn't have an official language. The reason we do everything in english probably has something to do with the founding fathers being English, and we being a former english colony.

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:52 am

Angel there was some pretty large pro German movemtns in the early years of the European only war. I'll find some stuff tommorrow on it, but needless to say once the US entered the war proper, Germman (And pretty much all immmigrant groups) bent over backwards to show how patriotic they were.

TheScamp · Post by **TheScamp** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:26 am

Hells, we had folks in congress talking about how really great Hitler was when it came to implementation of eugenics, which was quite popular at the time.

MooCow · Post by **MooCow** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:27 am

Wait... you mean Hitler isn't great?!

Johnny the Bull · Post by **Johnny the Bull** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 2:49 am

MooCow wrote:Wait... you mean Hitler isn't great?!

I'm shocked as well. News to me.

FlameBlade · Post by **FlameBlade** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:01 am

America's true primary language is gibberish. Trust me on this one.

FlakJacket · Post by **FlakJacket** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:53 pm

Johnny the Bull wrote:
MooCow wrote:Wait... you mean Hitler isn't great?!
I'm shocked as well. News to me.

I know. I knew that we had the kill shedloads of the buggers and bomb their country to rubble over some whole Did you just spill my pint?/Oi! Are you looking at my bird? that happened in a pub one time, but didn't realise he was evil.

Artemis Frog · Post by **Artemis Frog** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 3:07 pm

Thank you, Moo. I was going to post the Snopes reference as well.

The US has no official language, and the referred to German-language vote was about whether or not Congress should also provide German translations of stuff... in addition to the English which was already standard.

BloodHound · Post by **BloodHound** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:29 pm

if they did that, then they would also have to provide for the mass of Spanish speakers we currently have also, most notably in the Sourthern United States, S Cali all the way over to Florida.

WillyGilligan · Post by **WillyGilligan** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:15 pm

Except that the vote happened before we had a huge spanish-speaking population. Way before.

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:26 am

Damn it. I can find a lot on the good will Americans initially had on Hitler, but not on the stuff I want.

FlakJacket · Post by **FlakJacket** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:44 am

Serious Paul wrote:Damn it. I can find a lot on the good will Americans initially had on Hitler, but not on the stuff I want.

Oh yeah. IIRC there was a Senator or Congressman Kennedy that was leading the isolationist cause during the early years of WW2 so when Churchill and Roosevelt were getting together to try and cook the books they had to work around him and his considerable following.

Johnny the Bull · Post by **Johnny the Bull** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:46 am

Serious Paul wrote:Damn it. I can find a lot on the good will Americans initially had on Hitler, but not on the stuff I want.

Photos of the Marine and Stormtrooper's kegger in July 1938?

mrmooky · Post by **mrmooky** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 6:59 am

Serious Paul wrote:Damn it. I can find a lot on the good will Americans initially had on Hitler, but not on the stuff I want.

Yeah, the good will is worth nothing, given that even Churchill started off with a favorable opinion of the Nazis.

Johnny the Bull wrote:Photos of the Marine and Stormtrooper's kegger in July 1938?

I'm sure you could find photos from July 1945...

Liniah · Post by **Liniah** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:07 pm

Actually, Dennis is right. It was Dutch and it was only one vote. Coincidentaly, I read the same thing just the other day. I also read a really interesting article about it on the plane ride over from Denmark. Damn, where did I read that about the Dutch?

edit: maybe I read the same wrong thing that you did...cause I sure as hell can't find it anywhere now...

Salvation122 · Post by **Salvation122** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:11 pm

No, it's not, as Moo pointed out above.

MooCow · Post by **MooCow** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:23 pm

Actually, Dennis is right.

Dennis can't be right. The US has no official language, never has, and hopefully never will. English is probably the primary language because we were an english colony, so we were used to doing all our governance in english.

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 9:30 pm

Hey, thanks for clearing that up, guys. As you were.

Anguirel · Post by **Anguirel** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 8:47 pm

DV8 wrote:because aparently the runner up was Dutch

I'd like to note that the Pennsylvania Dutch are actually the Pennsylvania Deutsch, but Americans are stupid and don't realize that Germany isn't called Germany in German. Nor that German is not called German in German. They know German and Dutch, not Deutsch and Dutch. Thus it's very easy for a former legend regarding Deutsch to have been mis-copied to Dutch by some well-meaning but wholly ignorant clerk who thought the original was a typographical error as opposed to proper spelling in the native language referenced.

MissTeja · Post by **MissTeja** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 1:56 am

I don't know if it's necessarily ignorance, rather than just language differentials. Much of the rest of the world does not refer to America as America, the United States as the United States, or English as English. Where did Japan come out of Nippon? Two very different words. Most of the countries, nationalities, and languages are all known by different things around the world. I wouldn't call it ignorance, I'd call it preference.

Anguirel · Post by **Anguirel** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:31 pm

MissTeja wrote:I wouldn't call it ignorance, I'd call it preference.

It becomes ignorance if Deutsch is converted into Dutch instead of German. Which consistently happened in that time frame and was incorrect.

America's Primary Language

America's Primary Language

Re: America's Primary Language