According to a common legend, when choosing the official language of the United States at the end of the 18th century, German lost only one vote. We checked if it was so.

Here's what you can read on site School of foreign languages Start2talk: “Few people know that one day German almost became the official language of the United States. The Continental Congress, held during the revolution in Philadelphia, planned to accept a new language that would help to completely break off relations with the UK. As possible options, German, French and Hebrew were proposed. But when it came to the vote, the usual English still won, while the advantage was only one vote! ”

Similar information is present on the pages of others linguistic Portalsas well as in the book of V.P. Fedorov "Germany: 80s. Essays on public morals". In some places it is generally said that the decisive voice for English was presented by the German.

To begin with, in the United States there is no official (or state) language, although attempts to proclaim English periodically are being undertaken. English is the generally accepted language de facto-about 78% of the country's inhabitants speak on it. The bearers of the German They make up 0.38% of the population, or a little more than a million people. Only in the state of North Dakota this language is the second most popular, and then with the result in modest 1.39%.

However, this was not always the case, and other impressive numbers: about 50 million US citizens are of German origin - morethan any other ethnic group in the country. For more than two centuries, German has been the second most common language in the region, starting with mass emigration to the state of retirement residents of German Paalz and until the beginning of the 20th century. It was spoken by millions of immigrants from Germany, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary and Russia, as well as their descendants. Churches, schools, newspapers, factories and factories - German was present everywhere. Back in 1751, Benjamin Franklin, who watched the sharp increase in the number of immigrants from Germany, He wrote:

“Why should we endure the dominance of the Palatz peasants in our settlements? Why should they go down together, impose their tongue and manners, and ours to displace? Why should the Pennsylvania colony founded by the British become a colony of strangers, who will soon become so many that they are numbing us, instead of engraining them? They will never accept our language or customs, just as they cannot take our appearance. ”

The situation has changed with the US entry into the First World War. The struggle of the descendants of German immigrants for their language and culture came to naught at the moment when Germany became an enemy of the United States. It was, on the one hand, an unprecedented patriotic rise and the formation of a national American consciousness, on the other hand, the fear of being accused of betrayal. As a result, ethnic Germans began to turn their surnames to English -speaking (Schmidt on Smith, etc.), the works of great German composers disappeared from concert programs, and the teaching of the corresponding language was prohibited in at least 14 states. The last initiative was laid an end by the US Supreme Court, in 1923 recognized All such reforms in education are unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the assimilation process was no longer stopped. Negative heroes in the most popular films spoke with a German accent, and the Second World War completed the matter. The posters called not to speak in German, Japanese and Italian, and the main creator of victory in the eyes of the Americans was a descendant of German emigrants, and now - one hundred percent American Dwight Eisenhauer:

But back to the situation of the German language in the early years of independence of the country. The basis of the story that we are considering, apparently, lay down happeningthat occurred in 1795.

On March 20, 1794, a group of German immigrants from the state of Virginia filed a petition to the House of Representatives of the United States demanding to publish federal laws not only in English, but also in German. In response to this, the Chamber’s Committee recommended that they publish 3,000 copies of the collection of laws in German and spread them among those citizens who do not know English. And although the committee previously approved the petition when it came to discussion among the congressmen, it turned out that it had no special support. The debates dragged on, and as a result, on January 13, 1795, the vote took place with a different formulation: should the consideration of this issue for a later date? This proposal was rejected with the ratio of votes 42:41. A month later the question was nevertheless considered again. During the debate, a member of the House of Representatives of Thomas Hartley from Pennsylvania said: “It would be desirable that the Germans learn English, but if our goal is to provide relevant information, we must do this in an understandable language. Germans aged cannot learn our language in one day. ” Thomas objected that the Welsh and the Scots, who did not know English for centuries, nevertheless somehow lived in the UK. Thus, the draft publication of American laws in German was rejected.

In this place of our history, the German figure arises "with a decisive voice for English." The January vote on the transfer of the meeting is sometimes called the “Voting of Müleberg” by the name of the speaker of the House of Representatives, which Sources, he spoke badly in German, because his family managed to assimilate. It is believed that Mulenberg did not take part in the vote about transfer and even declaredthat "the faster the Germans become Americans, the better." Most likely, the voice of Müleberg could not affect anything, since even in the case of transferring sufficient support (as the subsequent discussion showed), the initiative did not have. And most importantly, this was not at all a vote for the official status of the German language in the country. Why did Frederick Mulenberg get into this story? Most likely, because a year later he filed a decisive voice for the so -called Jay law - The act that established partnerships with yesterday’s enemy, Great Britain, and caused a serious crisis at the US political elite.

Frederick Mullenberg, speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States (1793–1795)

Nevertheless, half a century has passed, and a German lawyer Franz von Leoher In his book “History and achievement of the Germans in America,” Müleberg accused that he had gained German to the status of a minority language. Leoher claimed that the vote was carried out not in the House of Representatives of the US Congress, but in the House of Pennsylvania (both bodies then met in the capital of Philadelphia), and the topic of voting was a choice between German and English on the official language of the state. Mullenberg, as Leoher wrote, at the decisive moment voted for English. Despite the obvious historical discrepancies, the work of von Leoher was widespread and greatly contributed to the formation of the legend of the “traitor” of Müleberg. And the legend received the second birth in the 1930s, when the Nazis Treated Give legitimacy to the historical myth of "almost German America." And only in 1982, Congress employees were able to properly understand the documents, restoring the course of distant events.

Thus, the German language was never close to becoming official in the United States of America.