Breaking news: The president of the United States intends to sign an executive order designating English the official language of the USA. Is this a big deal? Why was this necessary, and what happens now? Dr Carmen Fought joins us on this episode.
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Theme and intros: 0:00
Discussing the executive order with Carmen: 0:56
Thanks and reads: 47:38
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Become a Patron!Show notes
Carmen Fought | Professor of Linguistics Linguistics Field Group
https://www.pitzer.edu/faculty-staff-directory/carmen-fought
John Tanton | Southern Poverty Law Center
https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/john-tanton
Designating English as the Official Language of the United States
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/designating-english-as-the-official-language-of-the-united-states/
Immigration & Language Diversity in the United States by Rubén G. Rumbaut, Douglas S. Massey, 2013
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43297256
[$$] German as the Official Language of the United States of America? by Karl J. R. Arndt, 1976
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30156677
Multilingualism Is an American Tradition. So Is Backlash to It
https://time.com/6899172/immigrant-languages-history/
What Trump’s order making English the official language in the US could mean
https://apnews.com/article/trump-declare-english-official-language-5b24f6ac1172803f615cea69e13f8724
Episode 476 – Dollars to Donuts (Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar) | Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)
https://podcasts.musixmatch.com/podcast/down-these-mean-streets-old-time-radio-detectives-01h1ngdz40h1jbjfx464wgnvpt/episode/episode-476-dollars-to-donuts-yours-truly-johnny-dollar-01hjz7abr0hfsfxezz2ddq0x0d
Transcript
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]
[BECAUSE LANGUAGE INTRO]
DANIEL: Hello and welcome to Because Language, a show about linguistics, the science of language. My name is Daniel Midgley, and with me now is Dr Hedvig Skirgård. Hello, Hedvig.
HEDVIG: Hi. How you doing?
DANIEL: Doing good. It’s late at night over here, but I’m having fun, ooh, in my pantry.
HEDVIG: It’s an afternoon, early evening. It’s 5:30pm for me. So, that’s very nice because usually Ben and Daniel makes me get up at like 8am on a Sunday.
DANIEL: [LAUGHS] Well, you must be loving this recording time. Let’s not make it a habit.
HEDVIG: This is a good recording time. I’m not going to lie.
DANIEL: Let’s not make it a habit. So, this is going to be a different kind of episode of Because Language because we’ve got some breaking news. We wanted to talk about something that’s just happened. The US President Donald Trump has released and is expected to sign an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.
Now, I hope that we can have more of these breaking episodes in addition to our regular episodes when there’s something that needs speedy attention. But we need some help with this one. So, here to help us with this topic is Dr Carmen Fought of Pitzer College in Claremont, California. She’s the author of Language and Gender in Children’s Animated Films and she’s been active in speaking out against language discrimination. Hello, Carmen. Thank you for coming on the show.
CARMEN: Hello. Thank you for having me.
DANIEL: Could you tell us a bit more about yourself and your work in language? How are you involved in this English-only space?
CARMEN: Well, my area of specialty is what we call sociolinguistics. It’s sort of like sociology of language, and that covers everything about how we use language to construct our identity, how we learn languages. I teach a class on bilingualism, and I’ve done research on Spanish and English in Los Angeles, for example. So, I have some background in bilingualism. But also, as a member of the Linguistic Society of America, we have a very strong position on everything related to language and official language decrees. So, most of what I’m telling you would be backed up by anyone who is a linguist, regardless of their subfield.
HEDVIG: Can I just, for our listeners, get a brief summary of what this executive order actually entails? Because as a European, many European countries do have an official language. So, what does it mean for this order to exist? What does it do?
CARMEN: Basically, there are many countries that have an official language, and it’s not in and of itself necessarily a problem. It can be something that can be used to help organize, for example, a new government. But when a place that’s existed for a long time with a clear language that’s the one that’s preferred for everything, makes a language the official language, it’s a little bit strange. It’s sort of like making cars the official automobile of the United States or something like that. I mean, that’s kind of already happening. So, why do we have to have a decree about it?
And what linguists will tell you is that the reason for having a decree in a country that’s already had one language used for everything for a very long time is that it’s really about banning other languages without saying so, or lessening the ability to use other languages.
HEDVIG: Because one advantage of having an official policy could be that… I’m imagining, but, for example, if you don’t speak English and you wanted to have a right to an interpreter, maybe that’s easier if there is an official language and thereby there’s official interpreters into that language or something like that. So, that could be a benefit of having something that’s explicit, like written down.
CARMEN: Right.
HEDVIG: But I understand that is not really what this one is, but it can be hard to sort of understand in what space this is acting in.
CARMEN: Well, one of the things that the executive order today did is rescind a previous order by Bill Clinton which said that people should have access to translation services and other services as needed.
HEDVIG: Oh. [LAUGHS]
CARMEN: And that was rescinded in making the… But you’re right, you’re right, I’m really glad you said that, actually, because there’s many things about this. We’re like, “Well, if English is the official language, then it’ll help more people learn English.” It sounds good, but it’s actually wrong. If your goal is to have more people learn English, then I would super appreciate an order called the English for All order that does something like provide a lot of money for English classes and provide for babysitting services for people who want to take English classes. And makes it mandatory for communities with above a certain number of speakers of other languages to fund language training programs where people can learn English.
If they wanted to do something like that, or like you said, make it very explicit and clear that people are entitled to translation services as needed, if they wanted to do that, the government, the linguists would all come out, we would open our pocketbooks. We would put banners on our social media. We’d be so excited about it, but that’s not at all what this order is about, and that is not what they’re planning to do.
DANIEL: We have to remember that we’re dealing with an administration that wants to harm people. I guess you could say they have a thirst for the worst. Just think of the worst thing that you could do to people, and they will try to do it. And that’s been my cheat code. So, let’s just get our top line reactions. I was thinking… I’ve seen reactions that people think this is not a big deal, or even, “Hey, kind of makes sense.” Or, “Gee, I kind of thought that English already was the official language of the USA.”
CARMEN: AHA! Aha! Sorry, sorry, [DANIEL LAUGHS] but that is a big one for me, though. I’m sorry for yelling aha on your broadcast, but that is a big one for me. I talk about this with my students all the time. Previous to this year, where now everybody’s obviously very attuned to it, when I would ask my students if English was the official language of the United States, my college students, most of them didn’t know. Some of them said yes. Some of them said, “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.” No one really knew. These are my most educated folks in the country. So, if we can barely even tell if there’s an official order, the idea that… I think one of the things that’s proposed is that this order will make people learn English or if they want to use the language, encourage them to learn English.
And the fact is, most of the people that they’re targeting who are immigrants from other countries are not going to know whether or not English is the official language. So, where this is really going to have an effect is at the government level of providing services. And what it will do is provide an opportunity for people not to help people who speak other languages. Access for voting, translation of ballots is a big one. People are like, “Well, isn’t that already kind of happening? It’s not a big deal if we make this.” It is happening. So, then you have to ask yourself, if English is already sort of the unofficial official language, why do we need a decree? If everything’s already taking place in English, why do we need a decree? And the answer is to be careful that nothing takes place in any of these other languages that immigrants speak.
DANIEL: That’s it.
CARMEN: And if they could somehow make an exception for French, they would.
DANIEL: [CHUCKLES] Right. I mean, my sense is that this is an attempt to punish people who speak languages other than English.
CARMEN: It absolutely is.
DANIEL: Punish people who aren’t part of the white mainstream culture.
CARMEN: It absolutely is.
DANIEL: And I think people are going to die over this because they won’t be able to get help in a language they know how to use.
CARMEN: Absolutely.
DANIEL: Yep. Okay.
CARMEN: Absolutely.
DANIEL: There have been attempts to mandate the use of English as an official language before. Every once in a while, there’s been legislation to try to do this. I’m thinking of the… In 2023, the English Language Unity Act. Interesting name. Tell me about unity. What’s going on with the word UNITY?
CARMEN: Don’t even start with UNITY. The US English Movement, which was founded in the 1980s by one of the founders, was a proponent of eugenics. So, that tells you everything you need to know. Wanted to make a better race.
DANIEL: Lovely.
CARMEN: John Tanton, if you want to look him up. But that movement was really all about this kind of thing. And they used to send out these flyers asking if you would vote for having English as the official language. And they would say things like, “To avoid the upheaval that’s torn up places like Sri Lanka, would you be willing to make…?” As if political strife and wars and everything are about the language. And they’re not, they’re not.
I mean, one of the great cases of political violence in the millennium was the Troubles in Ireland, and everybody there spoke English; that didn’t help. You have places like Switzerland where people regularly speak… Actually, in most countries in the world, and the US is an exception, people speak multiple languages and are expected to and know that they might speak a different language to the person at the grocery store, and then they would speak if they go to church or whatever, and nobody thinks it’s a big deal.
So, when someone makes a big deal out of bilingualism, it’s really a secret way of targeting immigrants. And like you said, it sounds good… Oh, unity — it is not going to provide unity. And political conflicts do not get resolved because everybody speaks the same language, but sometimes you do have political conflicts because languages are banned. So, in many places in Europe and Spain, banning of Basque and Galician and all those kinds of things. That’s where you get political trouble and social upheaval, is when you try and stop people from speaking a language that’s part of their heritage.
That’s what you should be working on if you want unity is allowing people and celebrating the languages that we bring. Then, we’ll have a conflict in Iraq or somewhere, and we’re like, “Oh, my god…” The government is like, “Oh, where can we find someone that speaks Farsi?” And now suddenly, it’s useful. So being bilingual is inherently natural. It takes place all over the world and it’s good. And we’re one of the few countries who think there’s something dangerous about being bilingual.
HEDVIG: I don’t think the US is one of the few countries that think there’s something dangerous by being bilingual. I live in Germany. There are many people here who think there’s something dangerous about knowing multiple languages. The police ban speaking of non-German, but that’s also because in German you have controlled phrases that you’re not allowed to say. I think we’re seeing a return in many different countries to a sort of 1800s idea of a culturally homogenous nation state. You see this also in Putin’s ideologue. You see this in Hungary. You see this in Turkey, where people believe that the way that they can make their country strong is by becoming isolationist and enforcing homogenisation within their countries. I think it’s a general trend and the US is also on that trend.
I also think that Donald Trump is trying to make as many, many shots as he can these first couple of months to just distract, so…
CARMEN: Yes.
HEDVIG: …this is one of the policies. I am not sure it’s the most dangerous policy that they’re currently enacting. It is one of many. I suspect that the removal of interpretation services sounds much more dangerous to me than the acknowledgment of English as an official language of the United States. That is just dog whistling to ethnonationalists that the US is a white European country, which he’s already doing multiple other ways. So, it’s just appeasing them. But it is a shot that’s still going to harm people and it’s going to be a rough time.
DANIEL: Well, if you’re trying to navigate the healthcare system in a language that you don’t know well and funding for translators is cut, then that’s a health issue. For some people, that’s going to be life or death.
HEDVIG: I mean, I suspect that… wouldn’t a lot of hospitals and health insurance companies… some of them would continue to offer translation in certain services. Like Spanish, for example, I suspect a lot of them would continue even though they’re not forced to. What do you think? Would they?
CARMEN: I think it will just go down to where people are at with local government. If a particular organization is run by a particularly conservative group who thinks that immigrants are taxing the system, then they’re not going to do it. If it’s a progressive clinic in California serving largely Spanish-speaking population and they really want to do what’s best for their patients, I think they’ll try to continue, but this could be the first step in banning that.
DANIEL: And not only that, but also the money’s been there because of the Clinton ruling and now it’s not going to be. So, if you’re trying to navigate healthcare, if you’re trying to navigate the legal system, if you’re trying to take ESL classes, if you need multilingual resources, the money has been there and now it won’t be. We could also see the US government making English speaking a requirement for citizenship because they’ve tried it in Australia, where I am. And you’ve got to ask yourself, who’s going to do well in a scenario where English is required for citizenship? Who’s going to get in? Who’s going to clear that bar? What color is their skin going to be largely?
CARMEN: Also, Daniel, it may not be official that English is required for citizenship, but it is required. The test is in English, and they ask them lots of questions. How are you doing today? Did you get here by bus? I know because I’ve helped train… Not train, but like test and prepare people to take the citizenship test. My college students go with me and help. We couldn’t pass it. They ask a tremendous number of very specific historical questions. Who was the third president? What is the exact… And then, they ask bizarre questions like: what is truth? What is a lie? Have you ever engaged in prostitution? I mean, just really bizarre things, and my students are horrified.
But already that’s a problem, but where I see the problem is that they’re like, “We want to have a united citizenry.” Okay, they want to get rid of any translations of ballots for voting. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at a ballot for voting. I have a PhD. I am objectively one of the most educated people in my country. I’m a college professor. I teach complicated language every day. I cannot understand half of what’s going on in some of the propositions because of the type of language that’s used in English. Can you imagine?
I mean, the providing of a translation of that into someone’s better language, even if they speak English, fine. I wish someone would translate it for me. So, how in the world is that going to make for a more educated citizens rate? It’s doing exactly the opposite of what they want. It’s making a less educated, less likely to vote citizenry. And you know what? No, it is what they want. They don’t really want an educated citizenry.
HEDVIG: I was going to say…
CARMEN: They want white people voting who agree with them. They do not want someone whose first language is Chinese to vote. And that is anti-American. I’m sorry, I don’t usually say that. That’s not my big thing, but that is anti-American. Anything that stops people from voting or makes it harder for them to vote in an educated way is anti-American.
DANIEL: Preach. Thank you. The text of the executive order has come out. It dropped earlier today. So, I just wanted to do a line read. I’m going to read a bit of it and then let’s get our reaction and we’ll just go all the way through Section One. It’s got two sections, and Section Two is not very interesting, but Section One is where it’s at.
CARMEN: Yes.
DANIEL: So, this is called “Purpose and Policy.” And I just want to hear both of your reactions. I’ll give mine as well. “From the founding of our republic, English has been used as our national language. Our nation’s historic governing documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have all been written in English.” Reaction?
HEDVIG: That’s true, as far as I know.
CARMEN: I mean, there was some debate over German early on…
DANIEL: Yes, there was.
CARMEN: …with Ben Franklin being a proponent, but yeah. Okay, yeah, English has been used for all these things since the beginning of our arrival here. I mean, there was Miwok and other languages before us. But yeah, and that makes sense too, because they didn’t usually speak a lot of languages other than English. So, yeah.
DANIEL: Yeah, thank you. Let’s remember Indigenous languages. My response would be, the USA has been multilingual since its inception, from the founding of a republic. In fact, I’m just reading from this article by Rubén Rumbaut and Douglas Massey, published in Daedalus back in 2013. There’s going to be a link on the show notes for this episode. It’s called “Immigration and Language Diversity in the United States.” And it starts out, “Contrary to what some Americans seem to believe, the United States historically has been a polyglot nation containing a diverse array of languages. At the time of independence, non-English European immigrants made up one-quarter of the population; in Pennsylvania, two-fifths of the population spoke German. In addition, an unknown but presumably significant share of the new nation’s inhabitants spoke an American Indian or African language, suggesting that perhaps a third or more of all Americans spoke a language other than English.”
HEDVIG: That’s true, Daniel, but you and I both know that the Founding Fathers didn’t really consider these people as important in the forming of their nation state.
CARMEN: Exactly. The official documents were in English, but there’s a reason for that. Yeah, because the people in power wanted it.
DANIEL: There’s also… I want to point out also that the first time that the Declaration of Independence was published [Mistake! First time it was announced was in German, not first time it was printed. — Daniel] in a newspaper, guess what language?
HEDVIG: German?
CARMEN: German?
DANIEL: If you said German, you’re correct.
CARMEN: German. Yay. Cool.
HEDVIG: But I’m sorry, but this whole beginning, it just reminds me as like a European person, it’s always kind of odd to me how like whatever the fuck they did, okay.
CARMEN: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
HEDVIG: I don’t get it. Like, I don’t know if I care. And I know they’re all like, “Ooh, I’m like a textualist interpreter of the Constitution. I’m like…” or whatever the other words are, but I’m always like, okay, well, most European nation states have edited their Constitution or something since like the late 1800s. It’s normal as a country to change over time?
CARMEN: Yeah.
DANIEL: Yes.
CARMEN: I have a suggestion. I have a suggestion. Since the Founding Fathers originally wrote this document with a quill pen, I think we should have an order saying that computers and typewriters are illegal and we should write everything with a quill pen, because that is how the Founding Fathers did it.
HEDVIG: Yeah. And we know Trump loves a Sharpie, so I don’t know what he’s going to do. [CARMEN LAUGHS]
DANIEL: I think we’re overthinking this. I think this is a junior high school student’s way of starting an essay. “From the dawn of time, people have….” Yes, it’s that.
CARMEN: I’ve read some of those.
HEDVIG: No, it’s ethnostate nationalism.
DANIEL: Oh, yeah, that too.
HEDVIG: Okay. Mm-hmm.
DANIEL: Okay, next line. “It is therefore long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States.”
CARMEN: Well, what that means is folks have been trying to get this passed for a long time, and people realized it was racist. And there’s a bunch of multilingual people, and they were like, “I don’t know what that’s about.” And some people were like, “Who even cares?” And so, it didn’t get passed. So, it’s long passed for them because they keep trying and failing, but now they have Donald Trump, so they’re going to succeed.
HEDVIG: But as a reminder for our non-American audiences, this is not just saying, like, “Oh, you know how we most often do things in English? We should probably just write that down.” That is not all that is in this thing, right?
CARMEN: Correct.
HEDVIG: Because if that was all that was in there and that’s what they’re making it sound like, then the reaction, I think, of most people would be like, “Oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. We already do that,” but it comes with a lot more things beyond that.
DANIEL: It sure does.
HEDVIG: Which is important.
DANIEL: My reaction was: it is even longer past time that Native American languages were declared the official languages. But anyway.
CARMEN: Amen.
DANIEL: Next sentence. “A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society.”
CARMEN: Wrong.
DANIEL: No, it’s not. Having one language does not promote unity. I think of people that I see on the internet, and I’m not unified with them. I think: you’re typing in English like I am, and I think you’re a dickhead.
CARMEN: Yep.
HEDVIG: It’s also funny for like… Because these people like to hang out in Silicon Valley where everyone wants to have automatic translation from all languages all the time, I don’t know how none of the Silicon Valley weirdos didn’t convince them of ideas like that, but anyway,
DANIEL: Don’t know.
HEDVIG: Sorry. Go ahead.
DANIEL: So, do we have any more comments on speaking one language being a source of unity? Can we just put that to bed?
CARMEN: Yeah. I’m going with the Troubles in Ireland.
HEDVIG: Well, there’s the Troubles in Ireland, but like a lot of wars are not based on cultural differences whatsoever, they’re based on material conditions. You want to get more land. You want to get certain resources. That’s generally why you have wars. And if you fight with your neighbors, then they might be speaking a similar language to you. See Balkan. See Ukraine, Russia. I’m not saying Ukraine and Russian are mutually intelligible, but they’re similar.
But I must also say that it is hard for me maybe to be close friends with someone who I don’t share a language with, but I don’t know if it’s hard for me to be a citizen of the same country. I think there’s this idea that citizens should all have personal direct relationships. And I kind of don’t really get that, because if we have driver’s licenses and we’re okay on the road, if we pay our taxes and we understand the laws and everything like that, then I don’t need to personally know everyone in my country. But that is the idea they want, right?
CARMEN: That’s what they want.
DANIEL: Yes.
HEDVIG: They want feel a direct relationship with everyone who shares this thing. That’s why they only want people who are like them to be able to do anything, but they want to also be able to exploit the people who live in their country who aren’t like them as well.
CARMEN: Yeah. My comment on unity is anything that separates and privileges one group over another is going to promote not unity. It’s going to promote conflict. And this says, “If you speak English natively, then you are ready. And if you don’t, then you’re not a good citizen until you do.” And anything that does that is going to be the opposite of unity. It’s going to promote conflict.
DANIEL: Well, okay, so let’s talk about fascism, because this is linguistic fascism. My understanding is that under fascism, one group proclaims themselves the in group. They’re the dominant group, and everybody else is the out group. And if you’re in the in group, then you’re fine. You get to be lawless. But if you’re in the out group, you have to be flawless. If you’re in the out group, then you’re suspect. You’re considered to be responsible for social ills. And that’s the way it is with linguistic fascism as well. Like, one group says, “Oh, we’re the standard. This is standardised English.” And then, “Oh, you speak other languages? Whoa, that’s… We can’t tell what you’re saying, what’s going on?” So, linguistic fascism is a form of fascism.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
CARMEN: Yeah. And I can tell you right now, if everyone in that group was bilingual, they wouldn’t be doing this.
DANIEL: Right.
HEDVIG: I’ll be honest. I suspect a lot of them are bilingual in English and French, because that is what people at Ivy League colleges are bilingual.
CARMEN: Who have studied another language, yeah.
HEDVIG: Is that true? That’s my hypothesis. Is that true that they…
CARMEN: They probably got out of it.
HEDVIG: …if they know any language, they know French?
DANIEL: They mocked John Kerry for speaking French when he ran for president of the USA. They don’t care about that. To speak another language is…
CARMEN: You have no idea how that is. Come visit me. I’ll take you to see the animals at the zoo.
DANIEL: That’s just fancy pants book learning. Can we do that?
CARMEN: Absolutely. Come anytime.
DANIEL: Okay, cool. Awesome. Next line. “And the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language.” This is again you have to know everybody. That’s what this Hedvig’s idea of, “Oh, I’ve got to be personally connected to every single American.”
HEDVIG: Which is funny, because these are the same people who like to go on like 4chan and argue with people like they know.
CARMEN: I was going to say we’re exchanging an awful lot of ideas in English right now, and the country doesn’t feel pretty united to me.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
CARMEN: We are exchanging a lot of ideas. A lot of people who are native English speakers are exchanging ideas right now, and the country does not feel united.
DANIEL: I guess it’s time to point out also, English isn’t one thing. There are a lot of Englishes around. So, what are we talking about? Also, I would say the United States would be strengthened by a citizenry that can speak more than one language. I think that’s a form of strength.
CARMEN: See my previous example about Farsi.
DANIEL: Thank you.
CARMEN: And about voting.
HEDVIG: But that’s why you employ all the boffins at University of Maryland, right? So, that you every now and then have one Tagalog speaker when you want to spy on the Philippine government. I think they’ll always fund that. [LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: That’ll be okay.
HEDVIG: They’ll always fund that.
DANIEL: Next line. In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream. Comments? Encouraging the learning and adoption.
CARMEN: It would be nice to encourage the learning of English. I don’t think making English the official language does anything. It certainly doesn’t. I’ll just say this, making English the official language does not teach one single person English or help them to learn English, not one. Not a single one.
DANIEL: What does?
CARMEN: If they want to pass an English for all bill where they put a bunch of government money towards local centers where people can learn English after their 12 hours of work, you know what? I’m going to tell you this from personal experience, folks would show up. Because I have done citizenry coaching for people who do not speak English very well in Monterey Park, Chinese speakers. People came and took three buses at 8:00 at night. They left their husband on dialysis. They did all sorts of things to come in and sit down with my students and study so they could become frickin’ citizens of the United States and take the test. And so, if they want to put…
And why were we there? Because the government supported us? No, absolutely not. Because we volunteered to do it as a community outreach program, and it was free because we did it for free. If the government put money into centers where folks could learn English, you think people don’t want to learn English? You think they’re just sitting there going, “Oh no, thanks. Tagalog is fine for me.” Everyone wants to learn English. They just don’t have the resources.
DANIEL: Yep, that was my note. Are we going to see increased funding for ESL programs. No, that’s not what this is about.
CARMEN: Exactly. Show me the money.
DANIEL: Show me the money. Okay, next line. Speaking English not only opens doors economically.
HEDVIG: People know that. People know that.
CARMEN: Yeah. I think everyone knows that exactly.
HEDVIG: That is why they’re taking three buses to see her students. They know that. The motivation is very clear.
CARMEN: Yes.
DANIEL: My comment. Many economic doors can be opened by speaking other languages as well.
CARMEN: That also is true.
DANIEL: Then, let me go to my second point. How successful you are should not depend on speaking a certain language.
HEDVIG: That is true.
CARMEN: Yeah, that is so true. And they’re working against it. That’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re working against it.
DANIEL: Yep. Next line. This is, “Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities.” Comment? Does learning English help you engage in your community?
HEDVIG: I would say I live in Germany, and learning German means I understand more things around me. This is an even more homogenous language country than the US. It does help me understand some basic things what goes around me when a lot of that information is in English? If I lived in one of the places in the US in communities further south where a lot of people speak Spanish, then learning Spanish would help me. But in a lot of places in the US, a lot of signage, a lot of information around you is in English. That is not untrue.
CARMEN: One thing we haven’t talked about at all is the fact that there’s no change in how much English people learn in this country over time. The first generation comes in, they learn some English if they can. The next generation is born, they all learn English and often the home language. By the time the third generation is born… Linguists have shown this. We have statistics for this. By the time the third generation is born, they’re all speaking English anyway. So, the people you’re targeting are only the older or recent immigrants. And what happens with the third generation is they lose that family heritage language, and that prevents them from engaging with not only with their communities, but with their families of older speakers or speakers in other places who speak the other language. They lose that ability because they transfer completely to English.
DANIEL: That’s in my notes as well. Thank you. My reaction to this about community engagement, I just wrote, “Which community?” Because there are 350 languages in the USA. There’s a lot of language communities. Like Hedvig says, if you want to engage in your community, seems you should be able to do it in whatever language your community speaks. Once again, English speakers, which is a proxy for white people, kind of. Not one to one, but it is. They’re considered the natural owners, the rightful owners of the community, and everybody else doesn’t count, which is exactly what you’d expect from linguistic fascism.
CARMEN: Right. That’s correct.
HEDVIG: Mm-hmm.
DANIEL: Okay, next line. “Speaking English helps you participate in national traditions,” which is the same thing again, what traditions? Are all the traditions English Speaking? Do non-English speakers have any traditions?
CARMEN: Oh my god. Someone who speaks Tagalog wasn’t able to participate in St Patrick’s Day this year? That’s tragic. How about they get a ballot so they can vote? That’s a tradition I’d like to see them participate in.
DANIEL: Oh, I like that tradition. Okay. “And it helps them to give back to our society.”
CARMEN: [UNCLEAR]
DANIEL: Give back to our society. Did they ever say thank you? Did they say thank you? Okay. It’s shitty. It’s just shitty.
CARMEN: It is.
DANIEL: Okay.
CARMEN: It’s just racism.
DANIEL: I’ll keep going. “This order recognizes and celebrates the long tradition of multilingual American citizens who have learned English and passed it to their children for generations to come.” Well, Carmen, this is your datapoint about the third generation. By the time we get to the third generation, they do.
CARMEN: And how does this order do that?
DANIEL: Yeah.
CARMEN: They’re just trying to cover their ass, but this order is exactly the opposite of that if you’re paying attention, boys and girls and others.
DANIEL: When bilingual speakers come up at all, they’re used as cover. They’re used as a shield.
CARMEN: Exactly. Exactly.
DANIEL: Okay. “To promote unity,” — we’ve covered unity — “to cultivate a shared American culture for all citizens.” Cultivate a shared American culture for all citizens?
CARMEN: Yeah. Good luck with that. I don’t share American culture with Donald Trump, I can tell you that right now. So, good luck.
DANIEL: Yeah. What’s going on with that culture? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? I mean, whose culture?
CARMEN: I don’t look at someone as unhinged as Donald Trump and think to myself, “Well, at least we share the same American culture.” I feel like I share absolutely no values with this person. And this is just ridiculous. It’s just ridiculous. It’s getting just stupid.
DANIEL: We’re getting to values. But in Australia, we have this political party, a far-right political party called One Nation. And what they mean is, there’s only room for one nation around here, and it’s ours.
CARMEN: Yes, yes. That’s exactly what this means.
DANIEL: You don’t get to have a nation. There’s only one nation.
CARMEN: Yes, yes. If they had named this bill properly, they would have called it the “executive order to make English the only language of the United States.”
DANIEL: Yes, we’re getting to that as well. “To ensure consistency in government operations,” — not sure what that’s about — “to create a pathway to civic engagement,” again, this blocks civic engagement. Not being able to vote, not being able to get medical care. Not being able to get legal representation.
CARMEN: Legal… Yeah. Mm-hmm.
DANIEL: “…it is in America’s best interest for the federal government to designate one,” — get this — “and only one official language.” How about that? Letting themselves in and then pulling up that ladder. Can we have two official languages? No.
CARMEN: [LAUGHS] That would be really interesting if they made English and Spanish the official languages. I still would be opposed, but it’s very interesting.
DANIEL: [LAUGHS] Let’s have another executive order.
HEDVIG: Well, if you made English and Spanish the official languages and had interpretation services in legal and medical settings, that sounds pretty good to me.
CARMEN: No, I’m still no. I’m sorry, no. Still no
DANIEL: Yeah, still a worry! Better in some ways for some people. But the Tagalog speakers, what’s going on there? Okay. I know that this is taking a long time to hack through this verbiage, but I feel like we’re uncovering what’s really going on, so thank you for bearing with me. Thank you, audience.
CARMEN: I’m in. I’m a linguist. Word by word is my jam. Go for it.
DANIEL: Correct. “Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication…”
CARMEN: It’ll limit it, if you consider that stream… It’s like we’re going to streamline…
HEDVIG: Do they think they had a problem that the White House Press Office had to translate everything into multiple languages because they weren’t doing that very much, as far as I know.
CARMEN: Such a good question. I was going to raise that earlier. What problem are they trying to address here? Where is English not being properly adulated in our country? Where are we not treating English with the respect it deserves, that we need to address this? What is this complete panic and misunderstanding and mayhem in the streets that’s going on that this is supposedly trying to address? No. Just no.
DANIEL: “But it will also reinforce shared national values.” Go.
CARMEN: I wish someone would reinforce shared national values, but it’s no.
HEDVIG: I think it’s really hard for us as linguists to just go through this in isolation, because this is about the right all over the world in general, struggling with what countries are. Because they were stuck in this 1800 nation state just before First World War, eugenics is rife kind of idea of a nation state. And that doesn’t really work. It doesn’t really work, especially not in places that were colonies, it doesn’t work very well. It doesn’t work in many places in Africa. It doesn’t work in places in South America. And that’s why a lot of countries have tried to redefine what it means to be a country and what it means to be together, but they still want this. Yeah, this fascist, authoritarian, culturally homogenous unit. Otherwise, they don’t feel in control. And that is going to be chaos. It’s hard to control.
DANIEL: It’s hard to control. Yup. Good, good, good.
HEDVIG: And that’s funny, because they already have it. Like, we’ve been saying most people in the US speak English and feel forced to learn English. I don’t know what more they want.
DANIEL: Right.
CARMEN: They have it and as the home of the free and everything, the Linguistic Society of America reinforces the right of people to speak their language. Taking away someone’s language is not okay, and this is on the path to that. And I think when you say it that way, it’s like, “Oh, making English the official language, well, that doesn’t sound that bad.” But doing something that discourages and prevents people from speaking their heritage language is, in fact, anti-American.
HEDVIG: Harm.
DANIEL: Yep. You know they talk about shared national values. I think there’s a category mistake here, because speaking English is not a value. Values are things like fairness, equality, inclusion, diversity, compassion.
CARMEN: All the things this doesn’t do.
DANIEL: And frankly, I will not be lectured about values by somebody who has none.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
CARMEN: The shared values is just such crap. Like, the reason we don’t have shared values and the reason we have conflict in our country is because people speak other languages and don’t learn English? No, it’s because you’re an idiot and you’re in charge and a whole bunch of us don’t agree with you. That’s where the conflict in this country is coming from. And the people who disagree with you, by and large, speak English.
DANIEL: Okay. Finally, “and to create a more cohesive and efficient society.” That’s the first time the word EFFICIENT has come up.
CARMEN: Yeah, people like efficient. This is one of the ways that’s sneaky. There’s a lot of things about this, making use efficient language. Oh, well, it’s not even really changing anything, so what’s the big deal? Like, those are the things that are sneaky. And saying this makes the government more efficient because we don’t have to print the ballots in all those different languages, and we don’t have to… It’s exactly the same as saying it’s more efficient not to force buildings to put ramps for people who use a wheelchair or can’t walk up them. It’s more efficient not to do that, for sure. It is more efficient to only do things…
HEDVIG: For some people.
CARMEN: Yeah, it’s more efficient for the building not to have to do it. Meaning it saves money. It does save money, but it also prevents access and then that’s where if you are people with the values that you espouse, you want everybody to be able to get into the building and you want everybody to be able to vote and you want everybody to feel comfortable speaking their language.
We haven’t talked about where I think the real harm is going to be here. The most widespread harm is going to be kids on the street. I can see a Chinese American kid on the street, third generation, they have completely lost Chinese. All they speak is English. They’re walking down the street and one of these bubbas in a pickup truck pulls up and is like, “Go home. Speak English. You have to speak English now,” to a child who only speaks English.
Okay, not only is that messed up on so many levels, how traumatic is that going to be for a 10-year-old? Do you want that in your country? You want people… “We’re the family party.” Do you want people going around telling kids to go home where they came from and to speak English, some of whom may not even speak anything else? It’s sick.
DANIEL: Yep. I think you’re absolutely right. I think they’re saying efficiency when what they mean is not spending money. And I get that. I’m a person and I don’t like paying for things, but I don’t think this is efficiency. I think it’s going to gum up the works. People are going to have to rely on a patchwork of resources to get representation, to get language resources, and that’s not efficient. That’s not one-stop shopping. That’s like a piecemeal approach.
CARMEN: Do you know how much money is going to be spent if we get Trump’s birthday declared a national holiday like he would like? I mean, there’s going to be just… There’s so many things on the table, putting it… People like, “Why don’t we issue a $25 bill and put his face on it?” There’s so many crazy, whacked out ideas. Just running this executive order, I’m sure, cost millions of dollars that could instead have been spent on multilingual ballots.
HEDVIG: That’s the other thing. A lot of these costs are in the grand scheme of things not very large. You’ll see this a lot when politicians want to pull your heartstrings. They’ll say there were things like the US Aid went to certain places or these programs. Yes, they cost money and they will cost thousands of dollars, perhaps millions. And that is a lot of money for you as an individual. It is peanuts in the US Federal budget. It is tiny amounts of money. They spend more money on maintaining the military bases all around the world than they do on anything else that they’re going to be cutting.
CARMEN: And the government’s going to have to spend money on healthcare and hospital services for the people that are going to get beat up because they don’t look like the people who speak English.
HEDVIG: Yeah, it’s definitely not…
CARMEN: They’re going to get the cost back.
HEDVIG: It’s definitely not a lot of money that goes to these things. And it is, what do we call it when the right…? We call it dog whistle when we say virtue signaling, when we want to talk down to politically correct people, we say dog whistling when we talk about right wing people. Roughly correct, right?
DANIEL: I think so, yeah.
HEDVIG: This is just a dog whistle to certain audiences. And they don’t care if they hurt some people along the way.
CARMEN: Absolutely.
HEDVIG: Those are people they care about.
DANIEL: Because they have a thirst for the worst.
HEDVIG: They are not in… Well, they have a thirst for their white ethnostate, and these people don’t matter.
DANIEL: Well, once again, if you’re in the in group, then you’re worthwhile. And if you’re in the out group, not considered worthwhile.
HEDVIG: And if you’re in the in group, you better stick to these things, otherwise…
CARMEN: Correct.
HEDVIG: …you’re also going to get out.
CARMEN: Yeah, correct.
DANIEL: So, section one concludes, “Accordingly, this order designates English as the official language of the United States.” So, I think we’ve torn it apart. We’ve seen what’s what. I think we know what the deal is here. This is going to cause people who are not fluent speakers of English or for whom English is a second language, it’s going to cause them to have to scramble for resources. It’s going to dampen their civic engagement. It’s going to prevent them from getting help, getting voting help, getting medical help, getting legal help and lots of other. And even getting language help.
CARMEN: Yes.
DANIEL: How do we fight back against this assault on language rights? What do we do? Is there anything we can do?
CARMEN: I mean, you’re doing your part by getting the information out there so that people who were thinking before like, “Oh, well, you know, maybe it’s not that bad.” Hopefully. I’m going to certainly try and get on as many things as I can and tell as many people as I can it’s not harmless, and I think it has to be part of the bigger picture. Like you said, it goes with all the other racist things that are going on and homophobic and everything. I mean, we’ve got to fight this along with everything else, is what I would say.
DANIEL: Fighting everything at once. And it’s not just America, for our non-American listeners, I’m in Australia, we’re heading into an election and they’re going to be trying the same thing. They’ve already been saying that English is Australia’s “national” language, which is what you say if you’re trying to fool people into thinking it’s an official language it’s kind of like being a dietitian versus nutritionist. One term is regulated and the other one’s not. So, we’re having to fight this fight as well, because when America tries something, there are some people in Australia and in other countries as well that are going to try it.
HEDVIG: And the other way around, when the Australian government puts a bunch of refugees on an island outside of their shores, the Americans are like, “Ooh, what a great idea,” and the Brits as well.
CARMEN: Exactly.
HEDVIG: So, it goes all the way around. I think that… I’m wondering if one useful perspective is there are places where there are official languages where it isn’t shit. I happen to be in a country where it is, because in Germany, German is the official language, and you don’t have any right to interpretation. So, there are volunteer organisations that help people, and volunteer organisations are great. You could maybe bring your friends or family. Research shows that bringing your friends or family to appointments, usually it’s not great for translation. But there are other places, like in the Nordic countries or in Ireland, where in Ireland, I think English is the official language and Irish, but where they also have legislated that you have to have access to an interpreter. So, there is a way of having an official language that is not necessarily shit. This isn’t it.
CARMEN: No. In an ideal world, we could say, “Okay, you want more people to learn English? Democrats in Congress put together a bill, a big package with a lot of money to help people learn English. If that’s what you want, let’s do it right. Let’s actually do something that will be helpful.” I just don’t think that’s going to happen in this current political climate.
HEDVIG: I don’t think so either.
CARMEN: But that’s what I would say.
DANIEL: See, that’s called waste and fraud. When you spend it on the in-group, that’s fine, but when you spend it on the out-group, that’s waste and fraud. Because the whole thing, Trump’s whole shtick is the system sucks because it benefits people who don’t deserve it. You know who deserves it? You, because you’re in the in-group. So, I don’t think we’re going to solve our language problem any faster than we solve our shit problem.
CARMEN: Correct.
DANIEL: Like, not being shitty, we’ve got to work on that first.
CARMEN: Yes, yes.
DANIEL: And that involves voting. Voting for not terrible people. That’s the Because Language advice, I think. That’s my advice anyway.
CARMEN: Love it.
HEDVIG: And if you live in a place where people don’t have access to interpreting services and you think you can help, consider helping. Again, ad hoc interpreting is not the best, professional interpreters are better and can be more neutral and have more exact verbiage. But like for example, if you live in Germany and you speak German, there’s an organisation of medical students who accompany people to medical appointments and help interpret. That’s a very nice concrete thing that you can do. I happen to be useless at helping anyone in my country. My German is not good enough. But I hope that if after this move to an English-speaking country or a Nordic country, that there might be alternatives for me to help in this way too. So, look around you and see if there are any volunteer organisations that help with this kind of stuff.
CARMEN: I was going to say volunteers will step up and pick up a lot of the slack here, but it’s very sad that our country relies on that rather than…
HEDVIG: It is.
DANIEL: Yeah. We’ve been talking to Dr Carmen Fought of Pritzer University. Carmen, thanks so much for coming and joining us today.
CARMEN: My great pleasure, My great pleasure. Thank you for doing the good work.
DANIEL: How can people find out what you’re doing?
CARMEN: What I’m doing? Oh, I’m… You can find me on the internet. Just Pitzer College and Carmen Fought… Actually I have a debate with the head of English only that was 17 years ago that’s still a debate on the News Hour that you can look up on YouTube. If you look up “Carmen Fought” on YouTube, it’ll pop right up.
DANIEL: You have given me that link and I will slap it up on the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Carmen.
CARMEN: Fabulous.
DANIEL: And thanks also to SpeechDocs who transcribes all the words. Thanks to all of our great patrons. And I’d like… Yeah, that’s the episode, babies. And a special shoutout to our patrons at the Supporter Level here presented in boring old alphabetical order. Aldo, Alyssa, Amir, Amy, Andy B, Andy from Logophilius, Ariaflame, Ayesha, Canny Archer, Chris L, Chris W, Colleen, Diego, Elías. Our newest supporter, Faux Frenchie, Felicity, Fiona, gramaryen, Helen, Ignacio, J0HNTR0Y, Jack, Joanna, Kathy, Keith, Kevin, Kristofer, Larry, Laura, Linguistic C̷̛̤̰̳͉̺͕̋̚̚͠h̸͈̪̤͇̥͛͂a̶̡̢̛͕̰͈͗͋̐̚o̷̟̹͈̞̔̊͆͑͒̃s̵̍̒̊̈́̚̚ͅ, LordMortis, Luis, Lyssa, Manú, Margareth, Meredith, Mignon, Molly, Nasrin, Nigel, Nikoli, O Tim.
HEDVIG: Tim.
DANIEL: Thank you. PharaohKatt. I was waiting for that.
HEDVIG: Yeah.
DANIEL: Rach. Our other newest Supporter, Rachel, who took our yearly membership, thank you. Rene, Rodger, sæ̃m, Sonic Snejhog, Stan, Steele, Tadhg, Termy, Tony, Whitney, Wolfdog. [HOWLS] And new to the Listener level, Mel and Mary. Oh, hey, Hedvig, do you want to read the last little bit?
HEDVIG: Do you think, Daniel…
DANIEL: Yes.
HEDVIG: …that it is getting too long? Do you think that we need to have a new tier for getting your name said? Because it is long now. It is long.
DANIEL: I love it. I love it. You know what? I know that all those people are supporters and it’s just grown and grown and that makes me feel very special. So, no, I’m…
CARMEN: I think it’s great.
DANIEL: …reading them all. Hedvig, would you please?
HEDVIG: I don’t have the run sheet in front of me, but I believe that our theme music was written and performed by Drew Krapljanov, who’s a member of Ryan Beno and Didion’s Bible. And catch us next time. Because Language.
UNISON: Pew, pew, pew.
DANIEL: You did great.
HEDVIG: I have one question for both of you.
DANIEL: What?
HEDVIG: I listen a lot to old American radio detectives plays. It’s like Johnny Dollar Dragnet. I don’t know if you know what any of these things are, but I listen to them and one of them is Ellery Queen. Have you heard of Ellery Queen?
CARMEN: Absolutely. It used to be a TV show.
DANIEL: I was a huge fan of Ellery Queen in the 1970s.
HEDVIG: He says at the beginning of his shows, he says, [AUDIO CLIP PLAYING] “I dedicate this program to the fight against crime. Not merely crimes of violence and crimes of dishonesty, but crimes of intolerance, discrimination, and bad citizenship. Crimes against America.”
HEDVIG: Do you like it?
CARMEN: I love it.
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]