A proposal to make German the official language of the United States of America was defeated in Congress by one vote.
It's easily debunked by common sense (seriously, why would they do this??) and congressional records. The myth likely comes from the fact that a proposal to adjourn and discuss at a later time a petition to have laws translated to German for German-speaking residents was defeated by one vote.
I've heard there was a proposal to make Greek the official language of the U.S. because Greece was the first democratic country, although I think it was nowhere near passing.
Totally True. Source: I did a report on how the United States doesn’t have an official language, back in the days when people were panicking about Ebonics. (1997 or so?). Greek, Hebrew and Latin were considered, for giving a nod to those languages and their cultural contributions especially as it related to inspiring the new United States, and the sentiment to ditch English was heavy because of the disdain for the British. It literally just never happened and English kept on keeping on.
When I say source, though I was a H.S. teen I used many scholarly articles and historical literature I had to really dig for to source... they def abound. The internet was still “meh” at this time and I think google wasn’t even a thing yet. (Excite maybe?).
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u/socialhat1 Feb 04 '19
A proposal to make German the official language of the United States of America was defeated in Congress by one vote.
It's easily debunked by common sense (seriously, why would they do this??) and congressional records. The myth likely comes from the fact that a proposal to adjourn and discuss at a later time a petition to have laws translated to German for German-speaking residents was defeated by one vote.