First off, if you take your extreme example and go to France, you'll be surprised ;-). In fact, taking your extreme surprise even further, you'll find things i

First off, if you take your extreme example and go to France, you'll be surprised ;-). In fact, taking your extreme surprise even further, you'll find things in Southern France translated into languages you've never heard of, too, simply because there are a lot of French citizens who speak them. > While for some reason it does feel more borderline in the case of Spanish in the US, I'm not sure why? Because: 1. English has only recently (as in, about a month ago) become the official language of the US at a federal level. It's not necessarily super controversial (since it's singularily spoken by roughly 78% of the population) but six weeks isn't exactly tradition. 2. English is either not the official language, or has co-official status, in 18 states, and the NWS is a federal agency, so it does need to provide services to those 18 states, too. > I don't think anyone would debate that point (feel free to swap France for any other country). Practically all democratic countries debate that point, actually. State-level services are obligated to cater to their citizens, not the other way around. Swapping France for my country, yeah, it's been a settled debate for more than 25 years now (and we've been late to the table): state institutions have to provide their services in whatever language the citizen who requests them primarily speak, and under specific circumstances (law enforcement, judicial, health etc.) in whatever language a foreign citizen who is detained or in need of assistance speaks. If they need to, they can hire translators, but they can't say no, because they're the ones providing a service to the people, not the other way around.