Nothing official about American English

Presidential hopeful and former industry poster girl Carly Fiorina must be thanked for voicing a common assumption that sparked off a clarification that English is not the United States’ official language. In fact, the US does not have one. Indeed, it will come as a rude shock to some that the country roundly and routinely criticised for unduly influencing that very language does not, in fact, give any language pre-eminent official status nationwide though, some states do. English — with the all-important qualifying prefix ‘American’, of course — can at best be called a lingua franca there as it is most commonly used for communication and legislation. But legally, it has just about as much national importance as Spanish — the next most common tongue — or indeed Navajo, the Native American language with the most speakers. That Yiddish or Hindi have as much standing in the US as American English will surely be an ego boost for minority language speakers there.

The lesson inherent in this for India is obvious. The ferment over pre-eminence of one language as official or national over all the others is a waste of time and does not make a difference really. As long as the prime purpose is served — efficient communication, verbal or written — people should be left to chatter in whatever language they want.