I seem to remember from a high school class that some time early in history of the United States that there was a congressional vote on an officially language and German only missed becoming the official language by a single vote
Ah, that again (sorry for any links that may no longer work in this 2002 post of mine):
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The answer is that it is not true. There is no way German could have been
adopted as the official language of the US.
See the FAQ at
http://groups.google.com/groups?th=ce6e31b5d198f8f1
11.e. Did the US come within one vote of adopting German as its
official language?
No. This urban legend seems to be based on a 1795 petition to print
some laws in German as well as (not instead of) English. During the
debate, a motion to adjourn and consider the matter later failed by
one vote. No vote was taken on the actual proposal. Later that year,
Congress voted to issue federal laws in English only; the vote tally
does not seem to have been recorded.
Or to quote an old post of mine:
The idea that the US almost adopted German as its official language is a
myth. According to
http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/kade/adams/chap1.html
"Americans of German origin were about 9% of the total population of the
youthful United States around the close of the 18th century." Hardly
sufficient to make it plausible for German to be adopted as a national
language. Even in Pennsylvania, Germans were only about a third of the
population, which is why the same source notes "We know too that the
percentage of German-speakers was never large enough that German might
have become the official or second language of any state in the Union.
Nevertheless, the stubborn legend that on one occasion just a single vote
caused German to lose the battle in becoming the official language of the
United States simply will not fade." For more on that legend, see
http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/kade/adams/chap7.html which points out:
"When German-language farmers in Augusta County, Virginia petitioned the
U.S. House of Representatives in 1794 for a German translation of the
booklet containing the laws and other government regulations -- copies of
which had been distributed free in the English language -- officials
simply ignored them. Even the bilingual Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Frederick Augustus Conrad Mühlenberg, refused to support
their modest request, arguing that the faster the Germans became
Americans, the better. No doubt, disappointment with his negative, though
realistic, posture contributed a generation later to the birth of this
legend."
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/CqyFtveETV8/DMVivKpyRCYJ