If America were to be founded the same way as Switzerland, which languages should be official and primary languages? Why?

19 comments

1. I mean this seems unlikely to work out for a bunch of reasons (look at the fate of indigenous languages in Mexico and Central America to see why linguistic consolidation was central to 19th century western hemisphere statebuilding) but if it was multi ethnic the most likely mix would have been French, English, German, and Dutch languages in the 18th century. But the country would still have been like 90% British

2. German, French, Italian, and Romansh

3. >different European ethnic nationalities founded America together

   That is sort of what happened.

   If you look at our history, it would be English, Spanish, and French.

4. Honestly that sounds less interesting and fun than like a nightmare. Switzerland is an exception; multiple languages tend to be very divisive within countries.

   I love studying languages but I am glad that the US only has one de facto national language.

5. I mean it kind of was? I don’t really understand your question

6. Well…it would be English, Spanish and French for sure given the original colonies in what became the US.

   Germany didn’t have that official colonial presence but had a ton of people here with islands of German speakers hanging on in the mainstream populace as late as the early 20th so probably German, too.

7. English, Spanish, and French for sure.

   Switzerland has 4 languages, so you might be able to add German to that list. German was much more widely spoken in the early US, and only took a steep dive in the early 20th century.

8. There’s a reason we don’t have an official language – we already have a mixture of languages. It would definitely be English, Spanish, French, and German if things had stayed regional and languages made official.

9. …thats what happened.

   My state is full of French and Native American names on things. Other states are English or Spanish.

10. What you are describing is basically what happened in a roundabout way. There’s a reason why we don’t have an official language, it just sort of happened that English is the most spoken among all the regions. There are pockets though where English isn’t the primary language like some spanish speaking cities in Texas and Florida and the Amish.

11. Wait until you find out what New York City used to be called

12. This country started going downhill when we stopped teaching Latin in school

13. We do not have an official language.

14. “here different European ethnic nationalities founded America together”

    That is what happened. The concept of an official language is foreign and totalitarian to us.

15. As many other posters have pointed out, we kind of did start out like Switzerland.

    Unlike Switzerland, we don’t share borders with all of the countries brought their languages to America when it was being founded. It became more important to communicate with other Americans that it was with people in France, Spain, or Holland.

    Along the border with Mexico, there’s still a lot of Spanish that gets spoken. For the most part the large cities on the Mexican side of the border didn’t really start to become population centers until close to the 20th Century, and their growth was due to their location on the border. Throughout most of the 19th century the large Mexican population centers were in more Central and Southern Mexico.

    For comparison, the distance from the North of Tijuana to the South of Los Angeles, California is almost the same distance as it is from the Northern tip of Switzerland to it’s Southern tip. The Western tip to Eastern tip of Switzerland is about the same distance as it is from the Pacific Ocean to about 30 miles East of Yuma, Arizona.

16. How do you think America was founded?

17. If we were talking about in the beginning of the country: probably French, English, German/PA Dutch, and Netherlands Dutch, assuming the country is still racist enough to not care about the languages of African-descended slaves and Native Americans.

    Spanish wasn’t really that prominent in the 13 colonies, so I don’t see how that would be one of the original official languages

18. German, French, Italian, and Romansh probably

19. I was about to post a much longer history rant but I’m going to cut it very short OP:

    The Swiss Confederation has existed in one form or another since 1291. You’re take on Swiss history like a bunch of French, Germans and Italians just banded together like it’s a 21st Century American melting pot is an oversimplification of not only Swiss History but also North American history.

    A lengthy series of events (Wars, famine, Reformation, very powerful neighbors), a historically militant desire to maintain self-governance going back to the original Acht Orte of the Old Swiss Confederation lives on in the Modern Swiss Confederation. Likewise, the paradigm of events that brought the US into being cannot supplant those of the Swiss, thus they cannot be compared in such a simple manner.

    Some more relevant cliffnotes:
    The concept of Nation-states and thus “Nationality” did not even exist until the 18th century, and really took off in the 19th.