Legend has it that nearly two and a half centuries before President Trump declared English as the official language of the United States, Hebrew was proposed as an alternative.
In 1791, the Marquis de Chastellux (François Jean de Beauvoir), an enigmatic Frenchman who served as a general in the American Revolution, published an astonishing claim in his travelogue memoir. Chastellux reported that “some persons were desirous, for the convenience of the public, that the Hebrew should substituted for the English … that it should be taught in the schools, and made use of in all public acts.” Intriguingly, other versions of this myth identified French, German, or even Greek as the proposed language.
While Trump’s executive order seems unprecedented, such stories suggest that debates about national language policy trace back to the founding period itself.
Read Full Article »