Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 22

US languages spokenThe easiest answer to this question is: Almost all languages known to humankind. Such an answer should come as no surprise to those who know the United States as a nation of immigrantsimmigrants from around the world ( 7). While there has never been an official national language, some states have declared English to be the official language – mostly as a response to some of the recent SpanishSpanish-speaking immigrants’ insistence on keeping their own language while considering themselves to be American. Since the Spanish-speaking minority is the fastest growing, the bilingual parts of AmericaAmerica where English and Spanish are spoken also continue to grow. Those who want a few more facts can use the US Census BureauCensus Bureau’s official data from 2011 to see the top languages spoken at home: In first place is English (no surprise). Spanish or Spanish CreoleCreole comes in second (shouldn’t be a surprise). A very distant 3^rd place is ChineseChinese. TagalogTagalog (the language spoken in the [20]PhilippinesPhilippines) is slightly ahead of Vietnamese followed by French and Korean. But – and this is perhaps the real surprise – GermanGerman is officially the sixth most common language spoken at home in America after English and Spanish.

And on this proud note (at least for GermanGerman speakers), let’s leave the continent and travel across the ocean to our beloved island kingdom, which is actually a kingdom made up of more than 5,000 islands.