W. Va. makes English official language

[Blackburn]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7475440/?GT1=6428

CHARLESTON, W. Va. - Two days after the end of the legislative session, state lawmakers are discovering something few were aware of: They voted to make English the official language of West Virginia.

advertisement

The language amendment was quietly inserted into a bill addressing the number of members that cities can appoint to boards of parks and recreation. Among mundane details about record-keeping, the amendment adds the provision that “English shall be the official language of the State of West Virginia.â€

Senate Majority Whip Billy Wayne Bailey successfully offered that change to House Bill 2782 amid a flurry of bills moving back and forth between the House and Senate on Saturday, the last night of the 60-day legislative session.

“I just told the members that the amendment clarifies the way in which documents are produced,†Bailey, a Democrat, said Monday.

House Majority Leader Rick Staton recommended that his chamber agree with the Senate’s changes. But Staton, also a Democrat, said he was unaware of the substance of the amendment until asked about it by the Associated Press Monday evening.

Efforts to make English the state’s official language have been introduced annually since the late 1990s. A group called U.S. English has championed the cause.

“I think it’s wrong that’s something like that was snuck into that bill in the last minute,†said House Judiciary Chairman Jon Amores, who helped kill an earlier proposal to forbid any state or local agency from having to print documents in any language but English.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Joe Manchin could not immediately be reached for comment.

Andrew Schneider, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, said English-only laws are based on the false premise that immigrants will not learn English without government coercion.

“And English-only laws do nothing constructive to increase English proficiency. They simply discriminate and punish those who have not yet learned English,†Schneider said.

 

[Sindawe]

[John Chriton]

Whoops...

[/John Chriton]

 

[Scottmkiv]

It a good thing everyone reads the bills before they vote on them....

Who knows what might get slipped in there if legislators just glanced at the titles of bills before voting.

 

[jefnvk]

This simply reenforces my belief that once a bill is proposed, amendments are added, and no less than a week or so can pass from the time the last change is mad until the thing is voted on.

Luckily, something good came out of it.

 

[mete]

Sadly they had to sneak it in .I wonder what would happen if they put it to a vote ??

 

[Aguila Blanca]

“And English-only laws do nothing constructive to increase English proficiency. They simply discriminate and punish those who have not yet learned English,†Schneider said.

NOTHING could be farther from the truth.

Hispanic students who receive "bi-lingual" education and are spoon-fed their "core subjects" in their native language somehow never seem to be come fluent in English ... if they ever learn it at all.

Contrast this to kids from non-Hispanic countries. I used to work for a man whose mother came here to escape the Hungarian revolution. He was 12 years old at the time and didn't speak a word of English. They lived in NYC, where he was dumped into NYC public schools and "mainstreamed" (although they didn't call it that back then, because they hadn't yet set up bi-lingual programs for the Hispanics). He now speaks and writes PERFECT English, with no trace of an accent.

That's the way it should be. The schools are falling all over themselves to provide bi-lingual education, but it's really only for Hispanics. I found this out when I was married to a Russian woman with a teen-age son. The local high school has a bi-lingual program ... for Hispanics. When we went in to register Dmitri, I asked about native-language instruction for core subjects. The guidance counseler turned white as a sheet, hemmed and hawed for a long time, then got all tongue-tied trying to explain to us why mainstreaming was really better for him. Which translated into ... he wasn't Hispanic, so they had no teachers who spoke Russian and they weren't about to find money in their budget to provide a tutor for him to learn core subjects in Russian.

What a crock.

 

[SIOP]

Soooooooo-Does this mean that now everyone in West Virginia will have to learn English so that the rest of us will be able to understand them???

 

[Standing Wolf]

Sadly they had to sneak it in .I wonder what would happen if they put it to a vote ??

The representatives of the Democratic (sic) party would have had a hissing fit, of course. That's one of the few things they consistently do well.

 

[whm1974]

Andrew Schneider, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, said English-only laws are based on the false premise that immigrants will not learn English without government coercion.

“And English-only laws do nothing constructive to increase English proficiency. They simply discriminate and punish those who have not yet learned English,†Schneider said.

The first part is true, there are immigrants who do not speak or read english.

And what wrong with discriminating agaisnt people who can't be bothered to LEARN language?

-Bill

 

[Norton]

Soooooooo-Does this mean that now everyone in West Virginia will have to learn English so that the rest of us will be able to understand them???

Thanks for making me snort my coffee......

I'll be glad to translate since I'm multi-lingual. I can do WV good ol' boy, inner-city yute, and English

 

[thereisnospoon]

English as "official language"

Gentlemen,

Being born in W, Va. (that's West "By God" Virginia to those of you others) and now living in Alabama (was that a lateral move?????) I can say with certainty that now that English is the "Official Language" of the State, many will have to learn proper English.

Here in Alabama, we could never get a Bill like that passed because phrases like; "Fixin to", "Y'ant to", "J'eat yet", "Carry" (as in " I got to carry momma to the train station to pick up bubba from prison"), and "Y'all" would no longer be considered good form. In addition, there are far too many illegal aliens here to ever force English as an "Official" language

Spoon

 

[svtruth]

English

I remember hearing back in the 1950-60s that some people back in the hollers of W Va, Kentucky and Tennessee still spoke Elizabethan English.

 

[enfield]

Taint true.

 

[cuchulainn]

I remember hearing back in the 1950-60s that some people back in the hollers of W Va, Kentucky and Tennessee still spoke Elizabethan English.

Yes and no. It wasn't that they were speaking like characters from a Shakespeare play, but that they used some Elizabethan grammar and sentence structures. Such Elizabethan patterns, however, were (are?) a minority of their speech patterns.

Although Enfield is correct that it "taint true," the myth has some basis in fact -- it's an exaggeration rather than a fabrication.

There were pockets all over the Appalachians as well as on some of the more isolated Atlantic coastal islands from Maryland down to the Carolinas.

You see a similar phenomenon in "Ebonics." The use "I be" rather that "I am" -- as in "I be going to the store" -- is downright Elizabethan. But you wouldn't equate "Ebonics" and Elizabethan English.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Aarrggghhhhhhh!!!!!!



I am looking forward to the day (read:dripping with sarcasm) when we speak a mixture of Ebonics, Southern and Elizabethan English. A typical sentence would be something like:

Yo, Homey, I be fixin to carry mama to th' sto', y'all be needin' anythin'?

Cool, huh?

 

[Blue Line]

I bet the reverse of this thing is true, If we were to move to another country they would expect us to learn thier lingo as opposed the whole country catering to my language.

 

[Nehemiah Scudder]

Sweet!

Next thing you know, West Virginians might actually speak it properly!

 

[Gordon Fink]

The schools are falling all over themselves to provide bi-lingual education, but it’s really only for Hispanics.

Well, we really wouldn’t want the browns to get out of the underclass, would we? In fact, we had better get bilingual “ebonics†education going too, so we can keep the blacks there, as well.

~G. Fink

 

[DRZinn]

“I just told the members that the amendment clarifies the way in which documents are produced,â€

Well, he didn't lie....

 

[mbs357]

English the official language of an American state? SHOCKING

 

[CZ-100]

Florida did this years ago... guess what these none English speaking people are still getting things catered to them in other languages, like having to print elections ballots in 5 or 6 different languages. Drivers licencs books in some other form than English :banghead:

 

[WT]

I have a friend who is a WV native. Speaks English and fluent 'hillbilly.' Taught me how to pronounce Hurricane.