Should English Be the Official Language

509 Words3 Pages
Let’s Make It Official Should English be the country’s official language? Speaking English in the United States has always been natural to us U.S. citizens. However, it should be the official language to lower the cost of multilingual and bilingual services. The article “Should English Be the Official Language of the United States?” by Jayne Keedle is about the debate whether United States should use English as the official language. English should be the official language of the U.S. because it unifies us, it reduces the cost of providing multilingual services and it has widespread support. English brings us together as a people. In the reading Sen. Samuel I. Hayakawa (R-Calif.) says: “When people speak one language, they become as one, they become a society” (Keedle). Speaking English unifies us as a people. As we speak in one language, we are able to communicate with each other well. Conversing with others who speak the same language as you do makes a strong proposal of why English should be the official language. Miscommunication is a big cause when trying to speak someone from different cultures because of the type of language they use. With the many cultures, we are able to consolidate and understand each other more. Choosing English as the official language, it's a much less cost in language translations. With immigrants not being able to comprehend English very well, the U.S. Government have to spend more money to print out languages for them to understand. The author states the yearly cost of the different language print outs: “The cost providing multilingual services, including bilingual education, add up to hundreds of millions of dollars each year” (Keedle). Realizing how much money the government is spending to print out many different language documents for immigrants, English being the official language can cut the budgets to a smaller number.
Open Document