English assimilation process not always speedy

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Speaking in plain English didn't help Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James communicate his message any better to voters in June's Republican primary where he finished a disappointing third — even after a recount.

But the son of former two-term Gov. Fob James Jr. did fan the flames of the ongoing national English-only debate when he aired a campaign ad promising to end Alabama giving state drivers license exams in a dozen other languages besides English. James defended his position saying it would save the state money and speed the assimilation of non-English-speakers in his state.

"This is Alabama. We speak English. If you want to live here learn it," James says in the ad, which instantly became a YouTube favorite, but failed to translate into votes.

The race for Alabama governor was just the latest firefight in the continuing war on multilingualism. Among the many enlisted in its cause are radio talk show personalities Michael Reagan and Michael Savage who regularly accuse "diversity fanatics" of enabling and coddling today's immigrants — to the detriment of English — by promoting that documents and social and health care services be made available in other languages. Typical is the 2006 treatise penned by Reagan in which he laments the English language falling under attack by "hordes of immigrants, legal and illegal, chattering away in their native language and (who) have no intention of learning English."

At the root of their argument is the apocryphal notion that our European ancestors hopped off das boat and immediately set about learning English — forever abandoning their mother tongues.

This belief is so fervently held by English-only supporters that one begins wondering if boxes of Rosetta Stone software were being handed out along with citizenship at Ellis Island. Just sign your Johannes Hendrik.

Extrapolations arising from this tower of babble goes something like this: If Momma and Papa Hanson/Hansen learned to speak English so quickly, why can't this newest wave of immigrants to the United States, predominately arriving from Mexico and other parts of Latin America, do the same?

A compelling argument, if it were true.

But research by two linguists examining German immigration to Wisconsin discovered that wasn't the case at all.