The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
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 the story of english




From: cindy@lise.unit.no (Cynthia Kandolf)
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.jewish,sci.lang,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Was Hebrew proposed as official US language?
Date: 16 Jan 94 20:16:25

David DeLaney writes:
>Well, I responded to this once before, but it seems to have vanished
>into the depths of UseNet... The consensus on a.f.u is that it was
>*considered* as an official U.S. Language, but never got to a vote (I
>think). More material is (again, I think) available at the AFU archive
>on cathouse.org by anonymous ftp.
>
>ObFAQ:
>
>T. Hebrew was considered as official language of the US. [Guess what
>happened?]
>F.*German was once within one or two votes of becoming the official US language

If this isn't in the a.f.u archives with the article about German, could it be inserted? Thanks....

The following quote is from "The Story of English" by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. I have the "first American edition", published in 1986 by Viking Penguin Inc. ISBN 0-670-80467-3

pg. 239:

According to the Marquis de Chastellux, who traveled with George Washington in the 1780s, some Americans "propose introducing a new language; and some persons were desirous, for the convenience of the public, that _Hebrew_ should be substituted for English..." Other patriots proposed to revenge themselves on England by adopting French. One or two hot-headed legislators even toyed with the idea of adopting Greek. This proposal was rejected on the grounds that "it would be more convenient for us to keep the language as it was, and make the English speak Greek."

Part of the problem for the new Americans was that theirs was already a polyglot society. Many of the country's leaders, while recognizing the advantages of a national standard, also wanted to recognize the linguistic diversity of the new nation. Jefferson, for instance, advised his daughters to learn French to gain access to scientific progress. Benjamin Rush, another republican leader, championed German in particular and multilingualism in general. It was, he argued, more democratic. [Author's smartalek comment: Times really have changed, haven't they?]

The voices of reason argued that English was the obvious first language of the new United States. This was an unavoidable fact. In 1790, when the first census was taken, four million Americans were counted, and 90 percent of those were descendants of English colonists. [....]

End quote.

-Cindy Kandolf
cindy@lise.unit.no
Trondheim, Norway


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