'This is Alabama...We Speak English'....

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That's why English is the official language of Alabama. ;)


Although... If ASL is an official language, would the states, that recognize ASL, be required to put up video-embedded signs?

Oh, right. ASL doesn't have a written language. Phew.
 
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souggy said:
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That's why English is the official language of Alabama. ;)

Although... If ASL is an official language, would the states, who recognize, be required to put up video-embedded signs?

Oh, right. ASL doesn't have a written language. Phew.
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Yup, that's right and they made English as official language in 1990.
 
souggy said:
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Not if they're notifying you of destinations and whereabout, which bridges are out of service, re-routes due to closed roada, traffic jams due to construction and so on. They usually have complex instructions that is hard to simpify.
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In that case I definitely support requiring understanding enough English to read those signs, but requiring the fluency needed to take a test is excessive.

I imagine that to a certain extent, a non-literate driver would have some idea of what's going on by other cues like police officers redirecting traffic, orange cones, and the flow of the traffic itself.
 
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Just my expierence from going through Jasper and Bnaff in the Rockies. They have signs warning you of things that have occured within the parks in advance well ahead of time before you go on the highway. In those cases, there's no environmental cues.
 
hohDougRN said:
I think that mentioning even considering english only is crude and insensitive. This is a country formed and sustained by many different races and cultures....
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It is exactly because the people who come to our nation to settle use so many languages that it is necessary to use one language as a basis of unification of the people. Having a common language and culture gives a country its national character. The diversity of the people gives the nation texture and spice but the basis of strong unity has to be at the base. Without unity as Americans (not hyphenated Americans), there is no nation, just random competing micro-societies.

:2c:
 
CJB said:
Don't they make the shapes of the signs different so that they can be distinguished just by shape? I.e. stop sign is octagonal, yield sign is triangular. At least that's what I heard.
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Only basic traffic signs, not informational signs. Informational signs include a lot more text.
 
Reba said:
It is exactly because the people who come to our nation to settle use so many languages that it is necessary to use one language as a basis of unification of the people. Having a common language and culture gives a country its national character. The diversity of the people gives the nation texture and spice but the basis of strong unity has to be at the base. Without unity as Americans (not hyphenated Americans), there is no nation, just random competing micro-societies.

:2c:
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But why does it only have to be one language, and why at the cost of losing other languages? Are countries like Switzerland and Belgium "competing micro-societies"?
 
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CJB said:
Reba said:
It is exactly because the people who come to our nation to settle use so many languages that it is necessary to use one language as a basis of unification of the people. Having a common language and culture gives a country its national character. The diversity of the people gives the nation texture and spice but the basis of strong unity has to be at the base. Without unity as Americans (not hyphenated Americans), there is no nation, just random competing micro-societies.

:2c:
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But why does it only have to be one language, and why at the cost of losing other languages? Are countries like Switzerland and Belgium "competing micro-societies"?
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Because they have multiple official languages.

The Union doesn't have a de jure language, and thanks goodness for that; the official language affairs should be in the realm of state rights.
 
souggy said:
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Because they have multiple official languages.

The Union doesn't have a de jure language, and thanks goodness for that; the official language affairs should be in the realm of state rights.
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Which is fine, but I don't think there's a need to enforce a strict English-only law in any state of the U.S.
 
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Furthermore, in Europe, you're formally educated in all of your nation's official languages.

Apples and oranges.
 
CJB said:
But why does it only have to be one language, and why at the cost of losing other languages? Are countries like Switzerland and Belgium "competing micro-societies"?
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They are not nations of world-wide immigrants of multitudes of languages and cultures that have arrived in a relatively short period (just a few centuries). Since we already have one major language, why start dividing it up into more? That defeats the purpose of a unifying language and culture.

The other languages won't be "lost" in their native countries, and the American individuals themselves don't have to become monolingual.
 
souggy said:
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Furthermore, in Europe, you're formally educated in all of your nation's official languages.

Apples and oranges.
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How about the many countries that have unofficially spoken languages? Are they all "competing micro-societies"?
 
Reba said:
They are not nations of world-wide immigrants of multitudes of languages and cultures that have arrived in a relatively short period (just a few centuries). Since we already have one major language, why start dividing it up into more? That defeats the purpose of a unifying language and culture.

The other languages won't be "lost" in their native countries, and the American individuals themselves don't have to become monolingual.
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Having a driver's test in other languages isn't exactly going to divide up languages or annihilate the fact that English is the predominantly-spoken language of the US.
 
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CJB said:
souggy said:
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Furthermore, in Europe, you're formally educated in all of your nation's official languages.

Apples and oranges.
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How about the many countries that have unofficially spoken languages? Are they all "competing micro-societies"?
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*stares at Africa*

And your point is?
 
CJB said:
Having a driver's test in other languages isn't exactly going to divide up languages or annihilate the fact that English is the predominantly-spoken language of the US.
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I didn't say it would.

I said I didn't have a problem with giving tests in other languages as long as the driver had enough English comprehension to understand informational traffic signs.
 
Reba said:
I didn't say it would.

I said I didn't have a problem with giving tests in other languages as long as the driver had enough English comprehension to understand informational traffic signs.
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I misunderstood. I thought you were trying to use the multilingual argument as reason for why the test should only be administered in English.
 
CJB said:
So you don't need to be able to read English to read the signs.
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For the most part, no. People only need to know a few words in English to read some of the signs such as the Stop sign. Most signs are one or two words. Pretty simple, really. And most immigrants who drive and don't know much English can read these signs because they learn about these signs in driver's education first anyway.
 
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