AHC: Bilingual English-German US

Yes, I understand the whole "German almost became our official language" thing is a silly myth. But this is Alternate history, hence the challenge: with a POD after 1700, make the US (or its ATL equivalent) have both German and English as its official languages, with equal status.
 
Well honestly I can't see either as an official language but many native born Americans spoke German as a first language until the early 20th century when many schoolboards instituted English only programs.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
No Napoleons Wars would help, it created 40 years of little emigration to USA, which gave the English speaking Americans a oppotunity to fill up easten midwest. Without the Napoleons Wars, we would see continued large scale German emigration in early 19th century, especially with the large scale poverty and lack of industrialisation caused by the many toll because of the smallness of the German states. If Germans first are in majority in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois (beside Pennsylvania of course), we may see them push their language through as official state language (it would have the benefit that other immigrant and the English speaker group had to learn German and had to use it as lingua franca).
 
It's unlikely that they would be official languages of the United States. However, you could have Congress print documents in both languages, and have some states that are officially bilingual. In such a case, I could see some kind of bilingual immersion, like in Canada, becoming popular in American schools.
 
A stronger or otherwise different conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the U.S. might help. Know-Nothings or their equivalents succeed in getting some nativist laws passed, including establishing English as an official language (or at least on the course to becoming one). Catholics with political clout respond to these actions. One response involves German Catholics in the Midwest making German a secondary official language in their local communities, if not one or two states with German majorities. The inevitable disputes happen to reach the Supreme Court during a period when liberal judges are in power, and the ability for those communities to maintain this status is upheld.

Of course, as the immigrants incorporate themselves more and more into U.S. culture, and fewer and fewer people speak German, the requirements that public documents be written in both languages becomes more and more of a liability, and while German remains a de jure official language of Milwaukee, de facto the civil servants tend to ignore it.
 
Top