German almost became America’s official language. But the bill was defeated by a single vote in 1776.
True or False?
The notion sounds plausible enough. After all, English was the language of the hated Colonialists, against whom the American people rebelled. Why shouldn’t the fledgling young nation vote for a language, other than English, to further distance itself from the Colonialists? With over 50 million Americans claiming German ancestry, Americans of German decent represent the largest single ethnic group in the United States. They include such diverse personalities as John D. Rockefeller, Babe Ruth, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Amelia Earhart, Wernher von Braun, Adolphus Busch, Meryl Streep and Donald Trump. But, the plain truth is that the 1776 vote for an official language never took place.
The “By one Vote” myth
The “By one Vote” story is another urban myth. According to the legend the Pennsylvania state parliament took a vote sometime in the 1790s on whether German should become America’s official language. The Speaker of the House, a German-American by the name of Frederick A. Muhlenberg, cast the decisive vote for English and against German.
The true story
In reality, the 1776 vote never took place. However, it is true that German immigrants from Virginia petitioned Congress in 1794 to have certain US laws printed in German as well as in English. German translations were meant to help immigrants who had not yet learned English to acclimate faster in their new homeland. Congress denied the petition by a vote of 42 to 41. https://usa.usembassy.de/germanamericans-language.htm The German-born, bilingual Speaker of the House, Frederick Augustus Conrad Muehlenberg, abstained from the vote, but declared afterwards, “The faster the Germans become Americans, the better it will be.” www.spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfisch/onionfish-german-as-the-official-language-of-the-usa-a-306711.html
Even without German having become the official language of the US, many German words have made their way into our American vocabulary. How about angst, autobahn, kindergarten, coffee-klatsch, dummkopf, Diesel, edelweiss, gemuetlich, Gesundheit, hamburger, kaputt, muesli, and zigzag, just to name a few?
For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.
Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
