Sen. Obama wants to be president of The United States of America, yet Sen. Obama is embarrassed by Americans' singleness of speech. Ours is a country founded and established in the English language. Our country is a country with individual states larger than each European country and some larger than all the European countries combined. The populations of these states have voluntarily prevented Europe from having one language, German, twice in the last century at the cost of 117,000 American lives in the first instance and 418,000 American lives in the last instance. The borders of the U.S. extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and comprise a land mass greater than any other country in the world.
Our closest neighbors are Canada, predominantly English speaking, and Mexico, predominantly Spanish speaking. At any time in this country you will hear every language in the world, because we welcome people from all over the world and of every race and religion, including atheism. Those of us living on the southern border tend to speak at least some Spanish simply as a necessity. Those who have no or limited contact with people of other languages have no need to learn anything but English, which is precisely the point Sen. Obama misses. The Europeans need to learn other languages in order to communicate if they travel more than five hours by car or train. We do not.
Another by product of our one language is that from our effective independence in 1783 until the present there has been one outright war within the continental U.S., 1861 - 1865. In Europe during the same period from 1783 to the present there have been NINETEEN major wars killing millions of people. So much for a peaceful multi lingual society.
Having grown up in the “illiterate regions of Appalachia” I was afforded the opportunity to learn one of three foreign languages in high school, Spanish, German, or Latin. I chose German and studied it for two years. Years later while assigned to Germany, two Non commissioned officers from my company were assigned as interpreters when we trained with the 542nd Jaeger Battalion of the West German Army. One, a corporal who was married to a German woman and a sergeant, myself. That was decades ago, but I still delight the occasional German tourist by speaking with them in my now broken German. There are many Americans who speak second and third languages, usually because of work, but often for trips to overseas.
We are not necessarily proficient, but we do not have the need to maintain a fluent foreign language on a daily basis. And we should not need to learn a foreign language to communicate in the U.S. No wave of immigrants from Europe or Asia expected America to abandon English and conform to their language or traditions. They melded into the great country that is America. America is not iron, she is steel; when combined with heat, something stronger than the individual ingredients. That is the strength of America and the heat is our common language, American English, which is derived from every language ever brought to our shores. There is nothing to be ashamed of for speaking American English and no other language.
