The English language is an important unifying element of American society. It used to be, that is. Today, linguistic balkanization is dividing Americans, and our own politicians (of both parties) encourage it.
Think about it. Which is easier – to keep up with lying politicians in one language, or in two or more languages?
President Obama’s recent State of the Union address provides us two examples of this lingustic balkanization. First, did you know that there are official Spanish subtitles for the State of the Union? I didn’t know that, but there are. This year, they were garbled, Well, a more basic question is, why have these subtitles anyway? Shouldn’t all American citizens know English?
The Republicans are contributing to the problem. This year the GOP designated not one, but two politicians to respond to the State of the Union – one speaking English and one speaking Spanish! And guess what, these two were not saying the same thing!
Is this not a problem?
For the blog entry about the subtitles, click here. For the blog entry about the two Republican responses, click here.
Blog entries by Allan Wall, published on VDARE.COM, January 21st, 2015.
Tags: Language Politics