The Columbus Dispatch published an article Monday regarding State. Rep. Courtney Combs’ promise to introduce a bill in the Ohio House by the end of the year that would “declare English as the state’s official language and require agencies to produce records only in English.”
Titled the Ohio English Unity Act, Rep. Combs claims that making English the official language of Ohio would erase the disunity which our state experiences from being home to speakers of other languages. He further claims that since the “business language of the world is English,” the state would be more efficient if all of its citizens spoke a common language.
Michele Lalonde’s 1968 poem “Speak White” expressed much of the despair French Canadians felt as they perceived that Canada was attempting to convert their culture to an English-language-based society. “Tell us production, profits and percentages, speak white, it’s a rich language,” she wrote.
Certainly I share the representative’s opinion that those who wish to work in Ohio may be better off if a common language is spoken. I would not expect to go find work in France or Japan without preparing myself in some way for the demands that such a challenge would bring. However, the representative’s aims for such legislation are misguided and inadvisable for many reasons.
I urge Rep. Combs to rethink his position that English is the language of the business world. China is an example of a country which has a booming economy, a strikingly higher population than the United States and a very important role in the stability of our economy. The claim that English supersedes others in terms of commerce reeks of arrogance.
Even if declaring an official language could unify a people, it could only be done in a society that has only one language. Ohio might unify behind one language, but it would be at the cost of dividing itself through alienation. Even so, I cannot imagine Ohioans rallying around the English language as a symbol of pride and identity. Making English the official language will not inspire unity any more than declaring sunny days the official weather of Ohio will make our citizens happy on warm, spring days. In short, it will do nothing to bring most of Ohio any closer together, but it will do a lot to make it more difficult for some to carry out everyday tasks.
Furthermore, attempting to create unity by defining an official language is as insulting as it is ineffective. When did Ohioans decide they had nothing better in common than a language which not everyone speaks, and that it should be held as a symbol of pride? Is there nothing about us that could better define us as Ohioans? However many Gods we pray to and in whatever language, all of us look toward a better future where our children are better off than we were. If this alone is what we have in common, is it not a better symbol of our unity and humanity than a language?
When identity is nothing more than the language I speak, I am as well off as if I were a subject of the Crown. Identity is more than a language and more than a flag. It is that part of us that makes the hair stand on the back of the neck when hearing the lines, “Gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there.” It is that part of us that said when terrorists attacked New York, they attacked Ohio, too.
In June, I wrote a column opposing a flag burning amendment because it was without merit or legitimacy. This is another of those issues. When we commit to finding real solutions to the real problems Ohio faces, then we can look at what Ohio has become, and be proud.
Tim Hoffine is sophomore in international studies and journalism. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
