The predominance of English in New York City a multicultural society

Introduction Today a lot of languages are spoken in the U.S, particularly in New York City. There are more than 8 million inhabitants in the city and 3 million are immigrants. Even though English is spoken by more than 80% of the entire population of the States, it is not the official language. Indeed, there is no article written in the U.S Constitution, establishing an official language to the American citizens, but English is considered as the official one (de facto) and it is the first one which is used in the institutions, although more than 120 languages are listed. In the city the two other most widely spoken languages are Spanish and Chinese, due of course to the large number of people from both communities.

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How to deal with different languages in NYC?

The U.S is a colonized country in which people of the Old World 1 came to begin a new life. During the 20th century, a wave of immigrants coming from Eastern Europe and South America, brought their languages in the country. And New York City harbors nowadays many communities of different origins, this is what is called the Melting pot.2Many cultures exist in the city creating several areas from different origins, like Chinatown or Little Italy. An impact of the new immigrants on the institutions is noticed. The different administrations have to update themselves. They should be able to provide information and services in several languages. For a long time, there were no special services which provide language help to non-English speaking New Yorkers. But Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, ordered that a language assistance must be available in a hundred

Was said for the European continent compared to the American continent newly discovered in the 18th century.
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An Anglo-American word to designate a place where several ethnic groups live together.

agencies. People should be able to find information in: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian and French. But translation into the different languages was not done everywhere in the public services. Nevertheless, New York policy is facilitating integration of foreigners who cannot speak English. This is a way to keep their culture and identity. Government services communicate in several languages. For example, ballot papers, or forms for medical information, official government websites, etc, can be found in many different languages. Obviously, those languages are spoken in the city but remain in minority groups and secondary. English through the centuries manage to impel its supremacy in the world, and it became international in every field. And Americans managed to make English known throughout the world. It is as if every country in the world speaks English. Despite the hegemony of this language nowadays the policy of the country is changing with President Obama who is a symbol of tolerance and who represents the multiculturalism of the United States. And in New York City, politicians and the citizens are willing to help foreigners. Mentality evolves slowly and associations for language help and assistance are spreading. It is a great will of the U.S government to accept foreigners with their different cultures in the country. Mostly politicians understood that English cannot be declared to be the official language, otherwise it would raise more tensions in the population between the different communities. It seems that they put forward the fact that English should reunify the country, gathering people from diverse origin, instead of separating them, it can be simply the common language. As in the entire world, English has crushed all other languages in NYC. Even in France this is the first foreign language which is taught in the country, and in international trade, French employees have to speak at least English. On the contrary, in New York you find very few shops where employees speak French. This language comes only at the fifth position in the American classification of foreign languages.

Moreover, English is an international language which is more flexible than French and more tolerant. As it is easier to learn, pupils in the world prefer to study English. This can explain why many ex-colonies have dropped French in favor of English. Language is a tool for social success, and as English is a dominant language, mostly countries chose it for international commerce, foreign policy, business, high education, and we assisted at the globalization of English with the birth of informatics and especially with internet. Nonetheless we realize that the other languages seem to emerge in the big city. It appears that many New Yorkers from foreign parents, more and more would have to speak at least two languages: the one of their origin nation (or mother tongue) in addition with English In some areas of New York, schools choose to teach English as a second language, because there are many children of immigrants, who speak English differently from the other New Yorkers, with different pronunciation for some words (hog, fog), we can hear many regional variations. Those children and their parents, at home, do not speak English, but their mother tongue. Several Acts have been passed those 40 past years regarding the languages, such as The bilingual Education Act (1968), the first official federal law to cope with multiculturalism.3 If this had not been done, the English language could have remain a barrier for newcomers who came in The Big Apple to experiment an American way of life where everything is possible. IIEnglish crushes the other languages

The government of New York did a lot for immigrants. But those measures stand on opposition with the Act in relation to making English the official language of New York State passed on the 5th of March, 2001. As it indicates, the law wants to make English the official language of New York State. It is the contrary to what the Mayor of NYC wants, that is promoting the integration of citizens who do not speak English well. The first article of this law says that English provides stability and cohesion of the people. But it is not possible among people who do not understand well

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laws written only in English. This would disadvantage those who do not speak English very well. For instance they could be mistaken about a law. We can ask ourselves, how English language imposes itself among many other languages in New York? It can be explained by its historical past. The first Pilgrim Fathers were English so when they settled they built communities and used English for language. Other nations came to North America but did not succeed in imposing their own language as the first one in the country. There is also a feeling of superiority using the language of the conquerors. Citizens whom ancestors were among the first settlers are proud of their past and want to show it. Allowing existence of other languages is accepted in everyday life but officially speaking they do not accept that another language surpasses English. That is why several association groups such as US English, English Only, English First, English Plus or Save Our Schools (SOS) put pressure on the government to review laws on linguistic policy. They also do not consider the immigrants as totally being an American citizen as it is shown in the DVD New York in the Taxi Drivers collection. A girl who has been interviewed on what she thinks about taxi drivers in NYC, all she kept in mind was that they are not American. Like in the extract we studied in class from The African Renaissance and the use of African languages in tertiary education of Nerville Alexander, in New York City it is the same as in South Africa. We see the prevalence of the English language which erases the mother tongue in a multicultural society.

Conclusion As those who use English as their first language (because it is often their mother tongue) are more numerous in NYC than the others, we realize that this language is supreme, and its hegemony is far from disappearing. It will be difficult even impossible to impose other languages and make them equal to English in this society. Anyway, even though the U.S Constitution has been modified on the 1 st of January, 2002 it remains without any articles imposing an official language in the country.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WEBSITES *http://www.voyage-ny.com/La-langue-officielle *http://www.wsws.org/francais/News/2006/mai06/220506_Anglais_EU.shtml *http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/nyregion/23translate.html BOOKS *Bret, Ghorra-Gobin and Medina-Nicolas. Gopolitique des Amriques, Belgium : Editions Sedes, 2008. *Branaa, Jean-Eric. La Constitution Amricaine et les institutions, Paris : Ellipses Editions, 1999. DVD *Brouwers, TF1 Vido, New York , Media 9-52 min.