AH Challenge: US Official Language.

The challenge is to have the United States have a Native American language as its official language. It can be from anywhere in the US, but since this is AH and nothing is impossible, given sufficient PODs, ready...get set...go!
 
The challenge is to have the United States have a Native American language as its official language. It can be from anywhere in the US, but since this is AH and nothing is impossible, given sufficient PODs, ready...get set...go!
ASB, I'm afraid.
The use of 'The United States' implies a POD after 1776, by which time there were millions of English speaking people in the US. There wasn't any native group that big, by a long shot. Why would all the anglos suddenly start speaking a native tongue.

Even if it were 'an' official language, rather than 'the' official language, it's ASB, I'm afraid.

If all the Haudenosaunee spoke 1 language instead of 6 (each nation had its own (related) language), it would be wildly improbable, but possible to have it 'a' language after English and German, but as is, not even that's possible.

Do you realize how MANY languages in a dozen different language families were spoken in the territory of the US before white settlement?



Mexico? you might manage a Nahuatl-speaking state, if Cortez failed.
 
Well, IIRC, there are countries like Bolivia who have many native American co-official languages. According to wikipedia, it has 37 official languages: Spanish+36 Amerindian tongues.

Some of these are widely spoken (Quichua, Aymara, etc.) but others are spoken by very few people (like many of the languages spoken in the eastern Tropical Forrest).

Of course, the reason why this languages are recognised probably has something to do with the fact that there were three widely spoken native American languages (Quichua, Aymara and Guaranni) in Bolivia and, thus, the speakers of these languges have pushed for official recognition of their languages. Recognising these and not recognising the rest would seem unfair, so, eventually, 36 languages where recognised (even if some have very few speakers, not more than those who speak some native american languages in the US).

The thing is in countries which don't have one or more widely spoken Amerindian languages, like the US, Canada or Argentina, there doesn't seem to be this pressure for making Amerindian languages official (even if there are several Amerindian languages in these countries, although spoken by few people). Even countries like Chile, with have a significant Mapuche speaking minority (3 % of the population), geographically concentrated in one region, Amerindian languages haven't been recognised.

So, even if it's theoretically possible to have an US in which many native Amerindian tongues are co-official without changing the number of speakers of native American languages, it's hard to see what Pod would push the US in such a direction.
 
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Well, as an answer to the Chile and Argentina, they have a history of abusing native americans, much like the USA did. It's history nowadays obviously, but the natives there aren't very keen to be ruled by the Argentines/Chileans because those governments have never compensated them(as far as I know) for what they did to native americans as a whole. Maybe an Argentine user could clarify more? A Peruvian only knows as far south as Tacna, and on occasion Buenos Aires when there's a good match. ;)
 
Well, as an answer to the Chile and Argentina, they have a history of abusing native americans, much like the USA did. It's history nowadays obviously, but the natives there aren't very keen to be ruled by the Argentines/Chileans because those governments have never compensated them(as far as I know) for what they did to native americans as a whole. Maybe an Argentine user could clarify more? A Peruvian only knows as far south as Tacna, and on occasion Buenos Aires when there's a good match. ;)
I've always said it, stop talking about the US's wars against the indians, Argentina was far, far more efficient in its genocide :eek:
 
OK, I'll give it a shot:

1570 the Spanish establish the Ajacan mission in Virginia. Father Segura is talked into taking soldiers with him (in OTL he went without them). Eventually they are attacked by the Powhatan Indians who keep several of the Spanish soldiers alive so they learn the secret of the Spanish guns and metal. With these new weapons, Powhatan sets out conquering and allying with neighboring tribes. Due to the similarity of the Algonquian languages of the area and the prestige of Powhattan, his language becomes a Lingua Franca throughout the Northeast.

The English arrive in 1607 and find a unified Indian Confederation with metal and guns, speaking Powhattan from VA to NY.
 
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