President Donald Trump has signed an executive order declaring English as the United States’ official language, the first designation of such kind in the country’s near 250-year history.
“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. It is therefore long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States. A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language,” the order reads.
The move, made Saturday, revokes a previous executive order by Bill Clinton in 2000 that aimed to improve access to services for people who had limited English proficiency. However, the newly instated policy doesn’t mandate any changes to how agencies currently conduct their missions, meaning that they are not required to amend or remove procedures or documents offered in languages other than English.
More than 30 states already had English as their official language, though Americans are increasingly becoming bilingual, with census data indicating that one in five people spoke a language other than English at home.
At the time, the Founding Fathers felt no need to establish English as the official tongue, given that it was already dominant and doing so would potentially ostracize those who helped in the fight for independence who spoke Dutch, French or German. Language usage in the U.S. has historically been policed, however, as both enslaved Africans and Indigenous Americans were prohibited from speaking their native tongues at various points in the country’s history.
