Our Only Lanaguage Is English
April 24, 2008
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68 Responses to “Our Only Lanaguage Is English”
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Actually America has no defined national language. I guess we all just speak ‘i masturbate with a large eel in my anus while spanking baby jesus with a wet noodle.”
… and we still can’t master it!”
Um… I hate to say it, but true! If I have to discuss a situation with any utilities at home with someone that doesn’t understand or speak the language clearly, I’m going to lose it. All for speaking different languages (my family’s native tongue is French), I speak 3, but seriously, learn the english language!
America’s only lanAguage is English? But what is the OFFICIAL LANGUAGE?
Actually, none. There is no law that makes English the official language.
Now, for the purpose of communication, it is very useful and recommended to learn English if you are in America. But if I want to love America by singing its national anthem in some other language, say Spanish, what’s wrong with that? Isn’t this the land of the free, and not the land of the “slave to the english language”?
Please!
So, ASL doesn’t count?
While I love bigoted jingoism as much as the next guy, I do kind of see a point at learning english. Since english has become the lingua franca I feel that anyone who is really going to be active in the world must know it, and when living in america they MUST know it. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try to accomedate other languages, but everyone living here should at least make an attempt. But all the thought that goes into this has nothing to do with the person who wrote that on their car : /
Not if you go to Hawaii. It recognizes two languages. In their constitution.
I love the way that they spelled “language” wrong. Perhaps they aren’t that good at the one language that they “know”.
Ich Bin Ein Berliner.
yo HARI, bro, your name is Hari, youre not American
I have absolutly no problem with someone speaking an language they want. I do have a problem with well fare, and other social programs being in languages other than english. You have every right to speak whatever language you want, I just don’t feel that I should have to pay for you to speak another language. I would allow an exception for native north americans, as an offspring of the invading europeans we did kinda f*&k there S@#t up.
Sure, it seems like it would be more convenient if we all spoke a single language. But language is culture. The reason this is so funny is because it becomes obvious how ignorant it is to think your own culture is the correct one, particularly when your head is buried in the sand and ignorant of other cultures, like most Americans.
p.s. I love the yellow ‘Support Our Troops’ ribbon on the gas-guzzling SUV. That is the perfect punctuation to the sentence.
Claro que!! no el lenguaje es de este paìs es el español, güeros ignorantes.
These people have never been to a country that speaks another language. If they had, they’d figure out that Mexicans (or anyone else for that matter) aren’t intentionally shirking learning English. You always want to speak the language that’s easiest to communicate in. So stop taking it personally that they speak another language and understand that they’re very likely to be learning it.
“Since english has become the lingua franca”
This is too funny.
Almost every country south of the US border has an official language called Spanish. Why can’t we have one too. Fair is fair!
Hah, great message
Bush Voter no doubt.
Place an asinine yellow ribbon supporting our troops on that Land Whale gas guzzler that sends half the tank money into the hands of Middle East Despots and terrorists.
America is full of ignorant idiots.
…we’re working on that…
Search Youtube for “Stick Magnetic Ribbons”. Enjoy!
First of all, I have to say that I agree. If you are visiting a country no, I don’t think it should be required that you learn the language there. HOWEVER, if you plan to move to a country (such as America) you should learn the language there. I have no problem with people moving here from different countries. I work at a plant where there are many Hispanics. It’s very hard to communicate with them to get them to carry out certain tasks when they don’t understand a word you are saying. We should NOT be REQUIRED to learn Spanish in high school just because spanish-speaking people are moving here. THEY should be required to learn our language if they want to live here! Plain and simple! I’m not racist. My best friend married a Hispanic man and I happen to be good friends with him and his family. But they all know how to speak English. Get with the program people. If you want to live here, you need to at least make an honest effort to learn basic English!
I apologize that these people are from Georgia. It’s mouth-breathers like these that give all southerners a bad name. I assure you, the locals know these folks are morons too. Just because these particular Americans can’t speak any other language doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t possess the brain cells to do so.
I support learning English for communication, even though it is my 4th language. English is de facto lingua franca throughout the world nowadays.
Regarding the vehicle - it looks more like a minivan, which doesn’t use much more gas than a VW (I have both)
Also, even though “America is full of ignorant idiots” there are still enough smart and educated people here, which gives me some hope.
Wolf,
When you wrote “MUST know it,” does it include being able to spell “accommodate”? Evidently not. What about using French idioms to promote English? Or “lingua franca” does not count?
Or maybe you just want people to “look” a certain way so as to fit your world view of your country without regard to the founding principles of America?
Note that the use of “country” here is deliberate; it’s a contraption of country boy.
Illiad of Userfriendly.org has an opinion on this. I agree with it for the most part, but stop shy of saying “Get out!”. I personally believe that if you go to another country to work or live or for any extended period of time really, then it’s a good idea and would benefit you greatly to learn the local language, laws, and customs. Of these some are absolutely necessary, and generally these necessities are written in the local language. If you do not like this then as with not liking a movie, you can leave, or stay and not have a fun time. It’s your responsibility to “fit in” with the locals in this case. BUT so long as you ATTEMPT to do so, at least in my opinion, I’ll try to cross the gap with you. I certainly do not feel though that if you don’t like then you are obligated to “Get out!”
At least try to meet me in the middle somewhere.
Annie Mouse
@Obvious, Your Conscience
Actually, I believe that a minivan, not a gas guzzling SUV.
Sino pa ba dito ang gusto gumawa Tagalog ang pamgansang wika?
Our only language is Cherokee
Imagino que por América haces referencia a los EUA, mas no olvidar que América es todo un continente y va desde hablar francés (Canada) hasta portugués (Brasil).
¡Por cierto, arriba América!
“My culture and its language is better than your culture and your language, because I am used to speaking my language in this particular area of land and also (subjective, arbitrary opinions).”
None of it matters, people. It’s just the weird throat noises of that creature Human.
I think it’s about time that everyone understands that America is not a country but a continent. Stop referring to The United States as “America”. It is NOT a country.
Yes this is America but in America we also speak Portuguese, Spanish, Guaraní, and many indigenous languages.
nice, the idiot’s a minuteman too. have fun patrolling the border, i’ll just cross it 5 miles down the road, retard!
I’ve read about studies on young children, around 5-6 yrs old. They give them IQ tests then send them off for a few months of education. One group gets standard reading riting and rithmatic. Another got lessons in a musical instrument (or voice training, same deal), and the third was taught a good deal of a second language. The follow up IQ tests showed no change in IQ for the control (first group), and significant jumps in IQ, in the range of 5 points, for the kids taught music or a second language.
So, there’s plenty of good reason for english speaking kids to learn a second language, even spanish if it suits their fancy. And, it’s in the best interest of all the spanish speaking folks to help their kids learn english. It won’t just help them fit in in this country, it will actually make them smarter.
I know there some folks advocate turning some American cities into little pieces of Mexico with all spanish speaking schools, workplaces, governments, even courts. That would only serve to divide the country and alienate the people living in those places from the rest of the country.
It’s still an afront, mildly insulting if you will, to write on your car “any Mexican immigrant who doesn’t teach their kids english is practically a child abuser.” Yet that is true. One does not have to be tactful to still avoid being ignorant.
Obvious said:
“But language is culture.”
That is dead on. Mexican immigrants need to learn our language, American English, not even the british variety, because our language contains our culture. It’s a melting pot. We’ll take in words from Spanish and with them ideas and values. For example, everyone in America is more than happy to drink to Mexican independance on May 5, we’ll even call it cinco de mayo.
But unless we all speak the same language we’ll never be one country with one culture. It doesn’t matter what the content of the language and culture is, and the melting pot ideally will take the best each of our immigrant groups has had to offer, what matters is we all speak the same language, have the same culture, and (therefore will) treat each other like kin.
Somebody run his plate!
The most ignorant part is “America”: as if the rest of the continent didn’t exist.
The most naive part is the belief that the “very-small-men” can stop the flow of latinos to and from the USA.
The most sad part, as “your conscience” says, is the belief that a yellow sticker can counter the responsibilty a land yacth has in the war.
I don’t know about you, but I think the whole point of the picture is that he says english is America’s only language, but he/she fails to learn how to spell the word language and that if he was so adamant in enforcing english only then maybe he should learn how to spell, so other “English” speakers/readers can understand him. If Americans want foreigners to learn english, then they better god damn learn how to speak french when they vist paris, german when they visit berlin, and f$@king chinese when they visit china. I know its a sterotype but I can just imagine a stereotypical whitebread american yelling “can-o you-o understand-o me-o, speaky english!”
What is a lanaguage? why can’t we have more than one lanaguage?
Its not your language, you just bastardiZed our language. But don’t worry, the way your economy is going you’ll soon have all the call centers in your country anyway..
a government of the people by the people and for the people has no language. the government must adapt to its taxpayers not the other way around.
what lanagauge is are money printed in. that would be engrish
English should be spoken exclusively in the United States. Foreigners come here and start jabbering in a foreign language, then get uppity when they are told to speak English. They need to start kicking out those who refuse to speak English, be gainfully employed, and have only as many offspring as they can afford to pay for without government programs. Speaking of which, gov’t programs for foreigners need to be cut off completely.
A good portion of comments here don’t seem to indicate any awareness of the inherent irony in advocating English using incorrect spelling. Instead, they seem to focus on how much they agree with the message here.
Double-irony? Zing!
jaja, que racistas todos ustedes que creen que una persona deberia de aprender su lengua normal. No que la mayoria de ustedes creen en Darwin? Pues que porque no entiended “survival of the fittest”?
Every time I see a douchebag get his panties in a twist because of another individual being capable of doing / speaking / being differently than they are, all I can think is “Poor sap, he’ll soon be dead and all he will leave behind is his legacy of idiocy and fear of others.”
Vuntz I had a kendy store
Bizniss vas so bad
I asked mein vife vat to do
And dis is vat she said:
Take yourself some kerosene
Pour it on de floor
Take a match
Give a scratch
No more kendy store, HEY!
George W. Bush will go down in history as the worst US President ever. In addition, it will be made clear that the recession/depression we are entering is entirely a result of his fiscal policies AND his unnecessary war that is costing us billions and billions and trillions.
Too funny! You have no official language, and you complain about not having one, and having people not speaking English. In Canada we have TWO official languages, and welcome cultural diversity! That is why America has always been just a melting pot! “Everybody must conform!”
Bloody conservatives!
What’s funnier than that picture? The fact that many people that posted comments on here didn’t notice that Language was misspelled.
Funnier than that? I just commented without noticing that some other’s noticed that same thing.
GO ME!
actually America is referred first to a continent, that mostly speaks spanish, and secondly to a country.
I don’t care what you speak in America, but any language of European, Asian (this does not include the languages of the oppressed Native people of this land who came from Asia in the long run), African, or Australian descent get over yourself. This obsession with English in America is adding insult to injury for all of the descendants of the people we slaughtered. I know we can’t up and leave at this point, but have some respect, this was proportionally the most effective genocide of all time. Saying that English is the native tongue of this land is a HUGE insult.
About 250 million people speak American English, add the 200 million that speak actual English (Indian and Australian included), and you’re left with 6 billion people that don’t.
The biggest language is Chinese, atleast in the written form (over a billion readers, and speakers if you count mandarin, though only the written form is mandatory).
I’m not ashamed of writing English “wrong”, as it’s not my first language, as it isn’t the first language of most of people on Earth. But on the internet I’ve found that most U.S. people tend to have bad spelling, while the British and the Commonwealth countries have much better spelling when it comes to English, either American or British.
I check my spelling. A simple thing to do, if you’ve learned to spell English, which I did before I learned how to speak it. Only in the University did I learn how to speak RP, the British Received Pronunciation. My teacher in school was a Canadian, so I might still have a canuck accent.
So learne the languaguage, and laughe at it, as a nere thusand yeares agon it hwas gewrytten elsehow, wyth aule the estrange wordes et thynges yn tang wherfor you cannot knowe hwat hwas gesayt et don.
I’d rather masturbate free rather than be enslaved by a language.
It’s hardly fair to criticize someone who was never taught to appreciate other cultures and languages (sans a!). What people seem to really be missing is that this addresses a prevalent issue in American society (and yes, this is the proper adjective) and that problem is the lack of exposure we have to foreign cultures, truly foreign cultures. Asia and Europe are only a plane flight - or two - away, you can drive to the Central and South American countries and up into Canada but people don’t. Why? It’s simple, our country is big enough without thinking about these other places and this is something that non-Americans don’t realize. Language isn’t something Americans tend to think about until it’s a language they can’t understand. If you cross a state border in the US the people on the other side are guaranteed to speak English! Borders don’t mean the same to an American as they do to anyone else in the world. There a border signifies a language change, a culture change, etc. that just doesn’t exist in the US.
Think about it rationally. How many languages are spoken in Europe? easily twenty. How many are spoken in all of the Americas? Four (I’m talking on a large scale here - English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and then the hundreds of native languages, of course.) That’s half a continent with five times as many languages as are spoken on two whole continents. Is it honestly fair to expect anyone to speak languages that they will probably never encounter? I don’t think so. I do think it’s fair to ask the people who move to your country to speak the language of its people! Ask the French how they feel about the Arab enclaves in their cities. Ask the Germans how they feel about the Turks.
This happens everywhere, Americans aren’t any less vocal about it than anyone else (at least we don’t hold riots in the streets and set cars on fire) but people watch us more. Is that our fault? No. In fact, it’s tiring, especially to people who try and explain the country to the rest of the world (not just slam it like is happening here). Point in fact, slamming your own country is not going to gain you any brownie points with foreigners, you can trust me on that.
People who live in Canada live in America. People in Mexico live in America. People in Jamaica live in America. Even people in the Falkan Islands live in America. America is not a country - it is a set of continents. For more info, go to my website. Just because people from the U.S. are called Americans doesn’t mean they own the entire Western Hemisphere.
ahh, [sniff] smell that children? the interweb, where any numb-nuts/no-nutz can speak their minds without repercussions, filling that vast void within their lives (if only briefly) with that smug feeling of superiority above all others.
you reap the reward of picking this one tidbit out of millions of bits of information and assert your own views on it in vain hopes that you will sway one out of a million persons to your side, with nods and congratulations, a self-indulged pat on the back.
only now trying to lie to yourself, to placate that nagging conscience that “no, that’s not me, my opinion counts. i have a purpose. i have a life outside of this digital domain”.
language is a powerful tool. it’s rooted in civilization long before the first house was built, or crop grown. too often abused, under appreciated and misunderstood; use it properly or not at all.
I’d smash that guy’s windows in.
Yeah, don’t stereotype Georgia. We learn Spanish in high school here, and most of us can spell as well. The misspelling just underscores the childishness of this ignorant person’s attitude. Sure, let ‘em learn English. Teach ‘em economics and calculus, too. Learn EVERYTHING.
Yeah….
I don’t know; I think that we should have a national language. People generally should have to learn english if they’re living here anyway. But I think it’s important for people of all nationalities to learn the languages of different ones, including we english-speaking folk.
Haha! Some of you are missing the point. Here is someone with marginal literacy worried about others using the English “lanagauge” when it is a challenge for him. At least, use correct English on your protest sign if you expect others to learn English! English is in no danger of going extinct. Studies show that immigrants do learn English and are literally on waiting lists of several years to sign up for classes. Their fluency depends upon the age they arrived, their level of education and the length of time they live here. My grandparents were immigrants and, while they could converse. they were never strong in the language. They were still good citizens and my grandfather fought in a world war for the US. When they needed cannon fodder, I’m sure his limited English was not considered to be a problem. A question that we need to ask is, why can’t most Americans speak a second language?
Ay! Alls yous guys needs to just relax, okay? Just takes some time to get used to our soff….sofistica…..eh da way we talk.
I just see those things and giggle instead of being offended. It’s the goal of the American to feel superior to some kind of “other” and the majority of these people really have not done anything whatsoever to actually earn superiority - they do not have a superior intelligence, they do the least amount of work they can for the most amount of money or just suck the government welfars, so they have to fall back on the accidents of birth such as country of birth or native language to make them feel superior.
Enjoy your dwindling days of English being the only “lanaguage” in the United States … all empires fall and this one is no exception.
‘i masturbate with a large eel in my anus while spanking baby jesus with a wet noodle.” Bwahahahahahahaha
Americans = once more proven to be the dumbest nation on earth
more like American-English
What’s AMERICA?? Quechua language is more American than english, you moron
Ryan said:
“But unless we all speak the same language we’ll never be one country with one culture. It doesn’t matter what the content of the language and culture is, and the melting pot ideally will take the best each of our immigrant groups has had to offer, what matters is we all speak the same language, have the same culture, and (therefore will) treat each other like kin.”
I´m actually a spanish guy, living in Germany in a shared flat with a Russian and a french, talking English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French. Where I came from there are official languages (Spanish, Catalonian, Basque and Galego) and several dialects.That´s the real melting pot.
By the way, I’m really scared how this huge crowd of people from the deep America still have a big influence on politics (supporting the conservative party) :S
wow, I actually feel dumber for having read the comments…
Note to self: next time, just look at the picture