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"RESOLVED: THAT THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES ENACT LEGISLATION MAKING AMERICAN ENGLISH THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."

This sentiment was established by the English Only movement, which began in 1981 when Senator Hayakawa sponsored a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States. Variations on his proposal have been before Congress ever since; the Language of Government Act has been pending before the House and Senate since 1991.
Despite increasing interest in the concept of a monolingual nation, arguments for the adoption of a national language have been mostly anecdotal and have overwhelmingly been based on misconceptions about language.
The territory that the U.S. now embodies was home to several languages before the advent of European settlers. Each of these indigenous languages was a fully developed system of communication with rich structures and expressive power. The languages were indicative of......

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Approximate Pages: 4 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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