America Doesn’t Speak Americano As a nation built of immigrants with intent to be the melting pot of the world, it is only logical for the United States to reflect its acceptance and open-minded ideals through language. Using Kwame Appiah’s cosmopolitanism as a guideline using conversation, America can be one step closer to the country it should be. The evolution of language, specifically English shown by Leslie Savan is the main reason why the world, never mind a country, can never really have one language. The English language is apparently the most spoken language in America, but it simply does not account for all speakers. What is recognized as the ‘normal’ dialect of English, the typical Mid-Western accent cannot be applied across the States so easily; as specific regions and states have developed their own set of culture and dialect. “This means that speakers of a ‘standard’ language (whatever the language) ‘have favorable attitudes toward the lower-class, nonstandard speech forms’” is an explanation ‘covert prestige’ Savan’s What’s Black, Then White, and Said All Over? Due to ‘covert prestige’ there will always be different forms of speech within all demographics but primarily the working class, thus forming multiple dialects of English. These different dialects are possibly too thick that different accents within the same country are mutually incommunicable; which is very true and proves that English language itself dialect-wise is already like several languages. Declaring English as an official language would need to follow up with a declaration of an official dialect; this in itself is an insane task.
The American dialect of English is influenced by many colonizing countries as well as the immigrants, borrowing from not only Spanish, French, and Dutch settlers. Going further back into history, the English language is itself influenced by several other