English is clearly dominant, but official linguistic pluralism does exist in the US in some ways. For example:
* Large parts of the US provide ballots and other voting materials in Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Chinese, or various Native American languages, ...).
* Courts in the US will go to pretty extreme lengths to find interpreters for criminal defendants who can't understand English, even if their native language is somewhat obscure.
* There were public schools teaching primarily in Spanish until at least the early 2000s in Arizona; not sure if they still exist in other places. There are definitely still private schools teaching in non-English languages in some parts of the country, particularly Yiddish.
Anyway, making explicit any link between citizenship on the one hand and language or culture on the other is considered a somewhat solidly right-wing belief in the US (and I would expect in other countries that began their history as settler colonies, like Canada or Australia), whereas it would seem like much more of a centrist consensus in even some overall more progressive-leaning societies (from Article 2 of the French Constitution: "The language of the Republic is French". I would be shocked if France lets you vote in Arabic or teach public school classes in Lingala).
Because it's perceived as solidly right wing, and the other side of the political spectrum will fight it tooth and nail, it's hard for me to imagine the US declaring English as a federal official language in the foreseeable future.
> Large parts of the US provide ballots and other voting materials in Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Chinese, or various Native American languages, ...).
Sure, in locations where other languages have a significant presence. But these languages always exist alongside English. There are no areas that I know of that do not produce said documents in English. English is universal.
> Courts in the US will go to pretty extreme lengths to find interpreters for criminal defendants who can't understand English, even if their native language is somewhat obscure.
And what do those interpreters translate said languages into? English.
> There were public schools teaching primarily in Spanish until at least the early 2000s in Arizona; not sure if they still exist in other places. There are definitely still private schools teaching in non-English languages in some parts of the country, particularly Yiddish.
Language immersion schools exist in plenty of countries with official languages. English is not an official language in Spain, I went to an English language immersion school when I lived in Spain.
> Because it's perceived as solidly right wing, and the other side of the political spectrum will fight it tooth and nail, it's hard for me to imagine the US declaring English as a federal official language in the foreseeable future.
Not really, there are plenty of practical reasons why designating official languages would be useful. One of my friends worked in a hospital, and talked about how much of a nightmare it was to treat non-English speaking patients (or more specifically patients that didn't speak English, Spanish, Mandarin, or the couple other languages that staff members spoke). Ostensibly they're required to find interpreters for any and all languages that patients may speak. This of course is a mess. Designating certain languages as supported and not supported would be a big efficiency gain and result in better care. There are also concerns of people only producing advertisements for housing in specific languages (e.g. a Chinese landlord only producing ads in Mandarin or Cantonese), and some see it as de-facto racial discrimination in housing. What happens when a juror can't speak English? One could argue that dismissing non English-speaking jurors is a form of jury discrimination, but it'd be a bureaucratic nightmare to provide interpreters for every language a juror might speak. There are plenty of good reasons to designate English as an official language.
Regardless, whether or not English is designated an official language is pretty much moot. Over 80% of the population speaks English at home and over 90% are fluent in English. The next closest competitor is Spanish at roughly 1/6th the population. English will be the de-facto official language for the foreseeable future.
If I interpret you correctly, I think we mostly agree, on (at least) the following points:
* English is clearly dominant in the US and enjoys a special status both in law and in practice.
* However, linguistic pluralism is accommodated to a significant degree in the US, to a greater extent than it is in some other countries.
* Whether to designate an official language is more of a cultural/political wedge issue than something that would have a meaningful practical effect on life in the US.
The first two yes, but I disagree that the last one is so much of a political wedge. The fact that English is the de-facto official language, but not actually an official language is the source of much headache. Actually designating several languages as officially supported (English for sure, probably Spanish as well. Maybe others like Mandarin & Cantonese but that would make more sense to delegate to the State level) would be beneficial. It would have practical and meaningful effect. Perhaps not to an individual's daily life, but definitely for institutions that need to interact with large segments of the population. I also fail to see why you think this is a right-wing opinion. Liberal states including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, have made English an official language.
I am of the firm belief that it is government's job to reach out to the people it represents and not the other way around. Designating an official language or set of official languages renders a section of people as disadvantaged outcasts. It is not a crime to not know a language.
Even if we are not talking about impact to an individual from a liberal point of view, this official favoring of languages leads to extinction of smaller languages by means of them not being as useful to future generations as some other mainstream language.
> I am of the firm belief that it is government's job to reach out to the people it represents and not the other way around. Designating an official language or set of official languages renders a section of people as disadvantaged outcasts. It is not a crime to not know a language.
What and Earth makes you think that designating an official language makes it a crime for people not to know that language? Designating official languages is just being transparent about what languages will be used to render services.
> Even if we are not talking about impact to an individual from a liberal point of view, this official favoring of languages leads to extinction of smaller languages by means of them not being as useful to future generations as some other mainstream language.
Language extinction happens as populations become more interconnected, regardless of official languages. They're not going to be as useful regardless. And in fact, official language designation is sometimes employed to keep dying languages alive. North and South Dakota designated some indigenous languages as official languages.
* Large parts of the US provide ballots and other voting materials in Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Chinese, or various Native American languages, ...).
* Courts in the US will go to pretty extreme lengths to find interpreters for criminal defendants who can't understand English, even if their native language is somewhat obscure.
* There were public schools teaching primarily in Spanish until at least the early 2000s in Arizona; not sure if they still exist in other places. There are definitely still private schools teaching in non-English languages in some parts of the country, particularly Yiddish.
Anyway, making explicit any link between citizenship on the one hand and language or culture on the other is considered a somewhat solidly right-wing belief in the US (and I would expect in other countries that began their history as settler colonies, like Canada or Australia), whereas it would seem like much more of a centrist consensus in even some overall more progressive-leaning societies (from Article 2 of the French Constitution: "The language of the Republic is French". I would be shocked if France lets you vote in Arabic or teach public school classes in Lingala).
Because it's perceived as solidly right wing, and the other side of the political spectrum will fight it tooth and nail, it's hard for me to imagine the US declaring English as a federal official language in the foreseeable future.