The point is...

[Guest guest]

Hey, don't you see that the point is that the Dutch paid $23 for

Manhattan and sold it for $1? HEEE, HEEE, HEEEEE!

 

Now THAT's news.

 

Love, Bill Gates

'course the sad thing is that it sounds like all of my investments

too...

 

 

I think Michael that you are biased. Losing a soccer

match :-( clouds your

view. Of course it was Dutch not Deutch. You see those

English speaking

Yankees did not know the difference. That German fellow

knew that Dutch was

meant, that's why he voted against it ( I am just

making this up as I go.)

You know what I think, any minute now a Frenchman will

come out of the

woodworks and say that is was actually French, not

Dutch, not Deutch, not

even Spanish... even though that seems winning anyway.

What about Irish?

Here in Western Canada, Chinese is moving up strong,

there is one city

Richmond where all the store signs are in Chinese, it

is like Hong Kong

except that the buildings are still not so tall.

 

Ah, language in any language is reason enough for

fighting or... having

fun..

 

the ball (soccer) is in your court now,

Wim

[Guest guest]

Hi Mark, and other Dutch descendants and German ones

 

Here is the semi official story on the language of the USA

----------

--

The Muhlenberg Legend:

Official Languages in U.S. History

 

"German missed becoming the official U.S. language by

a single vote."

– Folk wisdom

 

By some apocryphal accounts, after the American

Revolution there was talk of deposing the language of

the oppressor in favor of German, French, Greek, or

Hebrew. Little evidence exists that any of these

alternatives was seriously discussed. No doubt Roger

Sherman, a delegate to the Continental Congress,

summed up the prevailing view when he quipped, "It

would be more convenient for us to keep the language

as it was and make the English speak Greek."

 

A more persistent legend, popularized after the Civil

War and revived by the German-American Bund in the

1930s, is that German failed by a single vote to

become the official language of the United States.

Apparently the tale draws on two unrelated events

involving Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg, a Pennsylvania

German who served as the first Speaker of the U.S.

House of Representatives. One of these involved a

petition by Virginia Germans seeking the publication

of important federal laws in their language. In 1795,

the House defeated this proposal on a 42-41 vote, in

which Muhlenberg may have stepped down from the

Speaker's chair to break a tie. Existing records,

however, make it impossible to ascertain what role, if

any, the Speaker played. It is known that he was never

fluent in German and was widely suspected of

Anglophilia.

 

In a second, better documented episode, Muhlenberg

broke a tie vote in favor of executing the Jay Treaty,

which authorized payment of a ransom for American

sailors held by the British. This act brought the

Speaker both political and personal grief.

Pennsylvania voters, who regarded the treaty as a

humiliating sell-out, defeated Muhlenberg in the 1796

election; whereupon his own outraged brother-in-law

attacked him with a knife.

 

A combination of poor recordkeeping, Muhlenberg's

reputation as an ethnic traitor, and German cultural

pride breathed life into this captivating but absurd

story. English has never been forced to weather a

challenge, serious or otherwise, in the U.S. Congress.

 

Before 1981, the only official language bill ever

introduced was a tongue-in-cheek proposal to recognize

"American."

 

----------

----

1997 by James Crawford. Permission is

hereby granted to reproduce for free, noncommercial

distribution, provided that credit is given and this notice

is included.