multilingual USA

at the founding of the US 1/3 of Pennsylvanians spoke German, and a large number of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans spoke Dutch, as years go on America would have immigrants from around Europe, many non-English speakers, also states like New Mexico were founded around non-English speakers, however today almost every where English is the first and only language, what kind of POD could get us a much less English speaking US?
 
Getting Canada (at the time it was predominately populated by French and Native Americans) to join the USA would be a start.
 
The only way i can think is that the thirteen colonies were not founded by England, as the most influential people in the colonies were going to be WASP's (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Just like the majority of the founding fathers. All Presidents up to Martin Van Buren were Anglo Americans, due to Britains vast influence on the US i think its very hard to create a non English Dominant America, i'm sure there is a way after the British colonisation but i kind think of one.
 
Getting Canada (at the time it was predominately populated by French and Native Americans) to join the USA would be a start.


Well I don't think we need to go so far, I mean till the early 1900s many New York/New Jersey towns spoke Dutch, and of course in our time most major cities have China towns were Chinese is mainly spoke, I was thinking that non-English speaking Neighborhood, or states like Minnesota speaking Swedish and/or Norwegian or Louisiana speaking French
 
Perhaps make Dutch and English official languages in New York State? I can see Dutch having a much more predominant position not in New York City per se but north of it in the Hudson River Valley: even to this day, a large part of the communities there are of Dutch descent.

WW1 and WWII also hastened the decline of German spoken in America.
 
spanish is prevalent enough, that some of us here in the western states (I among them) think it should be given recognition as at least a regional language.

so, it could be that a multilingual usa is in the near future.
 
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Hawaii is officially bilingual, many states have never regulated an official language, and as far as I know some south-western states are providing more and more services in Spanish as well. So you could say that it is more or less OTL.

However, if you want a linguistically fragmented USA you need to have immigrants from certain countries settle in clusters even more than in OTL. However I'm hardpressed to find any reason or mechanism to facilitate this, and it also would mean a much more fragmented American culture in general, i.e. a lot of side effects besides linguistic diversity.
 
Well I don't think we need to go so far, I mean till the early 1900s many New York/New Jersey towns spoke Dutch, and of course in our time most major cities have China towns were Chinese is mainly spoke, I was thinking that non-English speaking Neighborhood, or states like Minnesota speaking Swedish and/or Norwegian or Louisiana speaking French

I think Maine recognizes French as an official language or at least used to due to the big influex of people from Quebec settling along the border.
 
Weren't parts of the USA originally Swedish colonies? I could think of Maryland, but that's about it.

A small area along the Delaware River, now in the states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, was colonized by the Swedes as, originally enough, New Sweden. It was on land claimed by the Dutch and was quickly annexed, but (According to AH.com's favorite information source, Wikipedia) the Finns and Swedes retained autonomy until Pennsylvania was chartered. They don't seem to have had much influence, their biggest contribution apparently being the log cabin of the American frontier.
 
Hawaii is officially bilingual, many states have never regulated an official language, and as far as I know some south-western states are providing more and more services in Spanish as well. So you could say that it is more or less OTL.

However, if you want a linguistically fragmented USA you need to have immigrants from certain countries settle in clusters even more than in OTL. However I'm hardpressed to find any reason or mechanism to facilitate this, and it also would mean a much more fragmented American culture in general, i.e. a lot of side effects besides linguistic diversity.

yes, under the present system official anguages are a state matter, and there are several states that give some sort of concessions to non english languages. new mexico in fact has a bilingual constitution, the great majority of states though, and the federal government as well, have no official language, it sort of just defaults to english because that is what most people speak and that's what the laws are written in. also we do require fluency in english for citizenship.
 
spanish prevalent enough, that some of us here in the western states (I among them) think it should be given recognition as at least a regional language.

so, it could be that a multilingual usa is in the near future.

New Mexico has the only bilingual constitution in the US, Spanish and English, any ways thats more or less what I'm looking for in the US, many states with 20% or more of non-English speakers



I think Maine recognizes French as an official language or at least used to due to the big influex of people from Quebec settling along the border.

The woods of Maine and New Hampshire were settled by a large number of Quebecian lumberjacks, Maine has 25% French population and 5.28% speak French at home, while New Hampshire has 17% French population and 3.41% speak French at home.
 
There are plenty of places where it could happen, given the right POD. Traditionally French-speaking areas like Louisiana and parts of northern New England could retain their French. A larger and more insular German-speaking population in Pennsylvania and New York is another possibility. The Spanish-speaking southwest is another fairly easy one.

Now if you wanted to get REAL creative, you could wank an Indian nation--Cherokees, Seminoles, Navajos, and Comanches all sound like interesting choices off the top of my head--to make them somehow retain their language in much greater numbers than they do today.

Or you could do some sort of Southern slave-wank and create a large population of free blacks speaking a creolized dialect of English, sort of like Gullah but with way bigger numbers.

But ultimately the key to a USA that recognizes languages other than English--whether it's de jure recognition or just de facto--is numbers. You need enough people that use this as their primary language that they can't be ignored. For example, businesses in New Mexico pretty much have to employ at least some people who can speak Spanish; it's an economic necessity. Cajun French in Louisiana? Not so much.
 
You could have the migrants from Occitania and Catalonia to Carolinas to increase creating an Occitan community in USA, they could be an interesting addition to the US.
 
Decrease immigration. I know that sounds contradictory, but all those huddled masses ended up learning English for the reason that there was no benefit to learning German or Dutch or Spanish when more people learned English. Make the United States somehow not an immigrant haven and you turn the primary ancestral stock of almost everyone in the country into the people who were there during independence. This will result in increased linguistic diversity.

Not to mention the European-Amerindian creole languages that would likely result from less immigration. This would happen because there would be less numbers to use to basically mow down the tribes, and assimilation would have to be more common. Basically it would be like the demographics of a Latin American country. Quite an interesting scenario, in fact.
 
a possibility could be to keep the USA a confederacy. this would allow for there to be less cultural unity, because each state would continue to view itself as a separate nation. i could see NY becoming officially bilingual with Dutch and English, maybe even Dutch becoming the dominant language later?

this POD would also decrease immigration, which solves the problem posted above by Finn. a less stable nation is probably less likely to attract immigrants.

one thing that i love about early American history is that there seems to be so many strange and interesting turns in the road that could have been taken
 
Batdun crazy idea; what if a native language or one of those 'creoles' became a lingua franca for at least a region, seriously?
 
In the early 1900's German, Dutch were still spoken in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, French was spoken in Vermont and Maine. From what I've read on this board a lot of this ended with school boards enforcing English in local classrooms.
 
In the early 1900's German, Dutch were still spoken in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, French was spoken in Vermont and Maine. From what I've read on this board a lot of this ended with school boards enforcing English in local classrooms.

The 'Louisianisation' of Cajuns is spoken of here. The anti-french rules and all.
 

Warsie

Banned
The US does not enter WWI and that the immigration does not shut after WWIse end and there are no 'chinese exclusion acts' eighter
 
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