When Senator Sam Irvin, Chairman of the Watergate Committee, was questioned by John Ehrlichman about his understanding, he answered him "English is my Mother Tongue!"
I used to be in the Speak English! camp. but I have since thought, what would it hurt if we learned Spanish since they have been pushing it for decades to make us bi-lingual. The proof is in the telephone recordings for everything, for years.
In our immediate neighborhood (in Maryland) the only foreign language speakers I know are 1 German lady and 2 French ladies.
The map lists not only Mandarin and Cantonese, but also "Chinese"! Strange. Someday - soon! - the label " English" will be just as ambiguous. British? But which "British"? And there's more, beyond British. Australian? Texan? New Yorkese? Californian? Midland? Cajun? Canadian? High Tider? Jamaican? Standard India English? Regional India Englishes? Ebonics? So many! Some of these I believe are already mutually unintelligible.
Yeh, I've stated that my mother spoke English and not American. I did well in high school Spanish classes and tried to retain that vocabulary throughout my adult life by reading the free local Latino newspapers. I've had friends from Peru, Bolivia, Central America, Mexico (but not Spain), and they ain't all speaking the same language. Nor--as you point out--are people from Mississippi and the Bronx. So many dialects and regional colloquialisms. Regarding Chinese: WIKI says there are several hundred languages in China, and the predominant language in China is Standard Chinese. Again per WIKI: They [the several hundred languages] differ as much from each other morphologically and phonetically as do English, German and Danish, but meanwhile share the same writing system (Hanzi) and are mutually intelligible in written form. Fascinating, huh? I've always been fascinated by languages and wanted to take an Evolution of World Languages class in order to prop up my deficiency in world history.
I am all in favor of learning a second or even a third language, although I'm not going to take that on at this point in my life. If I move to an area where English is not the primary language, as when I moved to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, I'll try to learn the native language, and I certainly won't demand that those around me learn English. However, when someone moves to an area where the primary language is English, everyone there should not feel obligated to learn their language. If they want to, fine, but the obligation is on the person who decided to move out of his or her own language comfort zone. I took two years of Spanish in high school and earned good grades in it, but it didn't come close to teaching me Spanish.
I watched a lot of westerns and Speedy Gonzoles. Mostly where I learned my Spanish. I know a few words but can't string them into sentences most of the time.
John Brunner, I have one of The Learning Company's "The Great Courses" program on the history (or "evolution") of Language. Kanopy, which requires only a library card for registration, lists many of "The Great Courses", although I didn't see that particular course. They do have other courses on Language generally, and on specific languages. I was watching the course, but had to lay it aside when the instructor said something too far out. Introducing the course, he insisted it would be based on science. That's a euphemism for "I'm perfectly objective, so if you disagree with anything I say, you are wrong! - one of thise foolish science-deniers." A short while later he said the first human language sounded something like "Uhn-ugh! Grr, rarrh, g'g'ghhhh!" Grunts and ughs. But no language in the world sounds like that! He had no scientific basis to make such a clichéd claim. Every language I am aware of has clearly identifiable phonemes - a minimum of three clear, gruntless vowels and about 5 or 7 ughless consonants, liquids and stops, no stretched out grrrrrs, with specific words, prosody, and all the other accompaniments of human language. Not grunts and screeches. I hope to go back to that course, but I have for the nonce grown a bit leery of them. I'll get over it.
@Lambert Regenlöf I have a few DVDs from The Great Courses. In fact, I used to live near their facility, although walk-in purchases were not permitted. Maybe I should look up their language courses.
I've ordered several Great Courses lessons on DVD and, no surprise, never looked at them. I guess it's because I already know pretty much everything about the universe. I'm so smart it scares me.