History of American Language
This is my essay about the history of American language. You will see how the Americans were formerly Indian tribes, not the Whites like we can find now.
THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN
LANGUAGE
If we look back to the time before
European colonization, there were perhaps a thousand languages spoken in America. Before the arrival of Europeans
which bring English and Spanish languages to America, there were about 250 Indian languages in
the present territory of the United States alone. Sure these languages showed
tremendous variety between one another. Because of European colonization, the population
of native civilizations of the current territory of the United States fell from
about 20 million to the present level of less than 2 million. Beyond the
shrinking size of the ethnic populations, the languages have also suffered due
to the prevalence of English among those of Native American ancestry. Most
Native American languages have ceased to exist, or are spoken only by older
speakers, with whom the language will die in the coming decades.
I. Three Important
Languages in the USA
Many languages are used, or historically
have been used in the United States. The most commonly used language is
English. There are also many languages indigenous to North America or to U.S.
states or holdings in the Pacific region. Languages brought to the country by
colonists or immigrants from Europe, Asia, or other parts of the world make up
a large portion of the languages currently used; several languages, including
creoles and sign languages, have also developed in the United States.
Approximately 337 languages are spoken or signed by the population, of which
176 are indigenous to the area. Fifty-two languages formerly spoken in the
country's territory are now extinct. But there is only three important
languages which agreed by American for their existences; they are Indigenous
language, Spanish language and English language. We are going to limit the
explanation to those three main languages only. We are going to see how the
history of those three important languages and the development of them which
brought by the immigrants make three different but have main position in the USA as the
national languages.
1.
Indigenous Language
This language is spoken by indigenous
peoples from North America, Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South
America, encompassing the land masses that constitute the Americas. These
indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families, as well
as many language isolates and unclassified languages.
Thousands of languages were spoken by
various peoples in North and South America prior to their first contact with
Europeans. These encounters occurred between the beginning of the 11th century
(with the Nordic settlement of Greenland and failed efforts at Labrador and
Newfoundland) and the end of the 15th century (the voyages of Christopher
Columbus). Several indigenous cultures of the Americas had also developed their
own writing systems, the best known being the Mayan. The indigenous languages
of the Americas had widely varying demographics, from the Quechua languages,
Aymara, Guarani, and Nahuatl, which had millions of active speakers, to many
languages with only several hundred speakers. After pre-Columbian times,
several indigenous creole languages developed in the Americas, based on
European, indigenous and African languages.
Native American languages are spoken in
smaller pockets of the country, but these populations are decreasing, and the
languages are almost never widely used outside of reservations. Hawaiian,
although having few native speakers, is an official language along with English
at the state level in Hawaii. The state government of Louisiana offers services
and documents in French, as does New Mexico in Spanish. Besides English,
Spanish, French, German, Navajo and other Native American languages, all other
languages are usually learned from immigrant ancestors that came after the time
of independence or learned through some form of education.
Survival of Native
American Languages Today
Only 8 indigenous languages of the area
of the continental United States currently have a population of speakers in the
U.S. and Canada large enough to populate a medium-sized town. Only Navajo still
has a population of greater than 25,000 within the U.S.
Language Family Locations Speakers
Navajo Athabaskan AZ, NM, UT 148,530
Cree Algic MT,
Canada 60,000
Ojibwa Algic MN,
ND, MT, MI, Canada 51,000
Cherokee Iroquoian OK, NC 22,500
Dakota Siouan NE,
ND, SD, MN, MT, Canada 20,000
Apache Athabaskan NM, AZ, OK 15,000
Blackfoot Algic MT, Canada 10,000
Choctaw Muskogean OK, MS, LA 9,211
U.S. State names with
native origins
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas,
Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, (New) Mexico, (North/South) Dakota,
Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
This language has disappeared from long
time ago. But we cannot say that they don’t give anything to the current
English language. Some of states, the citizens are using the dialects of these
indigenous language. It can be a great mix as it will enrich the language
vocabularies.
2.
Spanish Language
It is the second most used language in
the United States after English. There are more Spanish speakers in the United
States than there are speakers of Chinese, French, German, Italian, Hawaiian,
and the Native American languages combined. According to the 2012 American
Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, Spanish is the primary
language spoken at home by 38.3 million people aged five or older, a figure
more than double that of 1990. Spanish is also spoken by over 30% of the
population. The United States holds the world's fifth largest Spanish-speaking
population, outnumbered only by Mexico, Spain, Colombia, and Argentina.
Throughout the Southwestern United States, long-established Spanish-speaking
communities coexist with large numbers of more recent Hispanophone immigrants.
Although many new Latin American immigrants are less than fluent in English,
nearly all second-generation Hispanic Americans speak English fluently, while
only about half still speak Spanish.
The Spanish language has been presented
since the 16th and 17th centuries with the arrival of Spanish colonists in
areas that would later become the states of Florida, Texas, Colorado, New
Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and California and of the Spanish explorers -
who explored areas of 42 states-. Also west of Louisiana Territory was Spanish
between 1763 and 1800 (year of the French recovery of territory), after the
French and Indian War.
Colonial expansion under the crown of
Castile was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the
Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations
for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Catholic faith through
indigenous conversions. Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus
and continuing for over four centuries, the Spanish Empire would expand across
most of present day Central America, the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, and much of
the rest of North America including the Southwestern, Southern coastal, and
California's Pacific Coast regions of the United States. In the early 19th
century the revolutionary movements resulted in the independence of most
Spanish colonies in America, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico, given up in 1898
following the Spanish-American War, together with Guam and the Philippines in
the Pacific. Spain's loss of these last territories politically ended Spanish
colonization in America.
After of the incorporation of these
states to the U.S. in first half of 19th century, the Spanish language was
later reinforced by the acquisition of Puerto Rico in 1898 and later waves of
emigration from Mexico, Cuba, and elsewhere in Hispanic America, to the United
States beginning in the second half of 19th century to the present-day.
3.
English Language
American English is a set of dialects of
the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds
of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States. The
variety of English spoken in the United States is known as American English.
English is the de facto national language of the United States, with 80% of the
population claiming it as a mother tongue, and some 95% claiming to speak it
"well" or "very well". However, no official language exists
at the federal level. There have been several proposals to make English the
national language in amendments to immigration reform bills, but none of these
bills has become law with the amendment intact. The situation is quite varied
at the state and territorial levels, with some states mirroring the federal
policy of adopting no official language in a de jure capacity, others adopting
English alone, others officially adopting English as well as local languages,
and still others adopting a policy of de facto bilingualism.
English is the most widely-spoken
language in the United States. This is the common language used by the federal
government and is considered the de facto language of the United States due to
its widespread use. English has been given official status by 30 of the 50
state governments. As an example, under federal law, English is the official
language of United States courts in Puerto Rico.
The use of English in the United States
is a result of English colonization. The first wave of English-speaking
settlers arrived in North America during the 17th century, followed by further
migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. Since then, American English has
been influenced by the languages of West Africa, the Native American
population, German, Irish, Spanish, and other languages of successive waves of
immigrants to the US.
The use of English language has been
spread all over the states. By the first time black people from Africa came to
USA by the immigrants from English and Spain, they were giving also some effort
in enriching the English language. Even black people had been treated very badly
as slave or servant in Abraham Lincoln’s government’s era, but they have roles
for the language vocabularies. As for now, you can find a ghetto saying which
is used by some black people. It is a slang language which uses by nigga or the
other call or name for Niger or black people. Ghetto slang can also be referred
to as black slang or rap slang. Black slang is a form of informal spoken
language with origins most often associated with African American teenagers and
young adults. However, other individuals use these type of expressions as well.
Examples of black slang
include:
Gangsta:
gangster
Bling:
flashy jewelery, wearing a lot of bold pieces
Grills:
Can refer to teeth or teeth jewelry, or even just the face or mouth.
Hang:
a shortened form of the phrase "hang out" or "hang out
with"
Hood:
People sometimes use this to refer to a neighborhood, but they usually are
referring to a rather poor area. Also referred to as "the hood."
Benjamins:
$100 dollar bills. Named as such because
Benjamin Franklin is the face on the bill.
Threads:
clothing
Aight:
Short for "All right."
Holla:
To get in touch with someone.
Crib:
home
Playa:
Someone who dates many people at the same time.
Roll
up: Show up somewhere.
Straight:
Often used in conjunction with "we" for "We straight"
meaning that all is well.
Sometimes they use bad words which define
another meaning. For example, there is this sentence; "I need my
space" which means “I need you to
leave me alone so I can have a good reason to dump you and date your attractive
friend.” They are minimizing the words but actually have a lot of meanings.
Another example, "Wreck me nigga", which means “Sir I warned you about disrespecting me and now I would like to engage
in physical combat with you.” It is just so surprising how a language can
delivers a lot of meanings.
II. Language Ranks Used by
American
After those explanations, we can see
how important those three languages for American people. Even though indigenous
language has disappeared since a long time ago leaving it only two main
languages (Spanish and English), cannot miss the opportunity of some states
which still accentuating the use of indigenous language. You can’t just forget
the history because it is what built the nowadays condition of your country. So,
we can see some languages ranks which are used by American this day.
As for the official languages, they have
none at federal level. But for the main languages, there are English (80%),
Spanish (12.4%), other Indo-European (3.7%), Asian and Pacific island languages
(3%), and other languages (0.9%). These numbers are the survey of Census Bureau
in 2009. We can see those numbers in percentages which divide the position of
language used by American people nowadays.
As for the indigenous languages, there
are Navajo, Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Dakota, Western Apache, Keres, Cherokee,
Zuni, Ojibwe, O'odham, and there are still hundreds more. As for the main
immigrant languages, there are Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Tagalog,
Vietnamese, Italian, and Portuguese. But Spanish still on the highest position
among all.
From all of those explanations, we can
conclude that there were only three main languages which used by American since
the beginning up until now. They are a little number of indigenous language
which blended with Spanish and English, Spanish language and English language.
CONCLUSION
There are three important languages
in the United States. Along with the history, those three languages; native
language, Spanish, and English came from the immigrants who colonized the
United States. As time goes by, there is always new immigrants who come to the
USA and bring their own habit and of course, language and dialects. So the
development of language will always grow. As for the main language spoken by
most American is English language which followed by Spanish and other immigrant
languages like Chinese, Tagalog, Arabic, and there are still more.
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