4 ms·

> German is criminalised in 23 states. You're not allowed to speak it in public, you're not allowed to use it in the radio, you're not allowed to teach it to a

by scribu 12y ago

> German is criminalised in 23 states. You're not allowed to speak it in public, you're not allowed to use it in the radio, you're not allowed to teach it to a child under the age of 10. I found that striking - how could someone just ban a language? - but then I remembered learning about Romanian being banned during the Hungarian occupation of Transylvania (where I currently live). I'm sure there are many other examples throughout history.

fgp 12y ago
In Brazil German, Italian and Japanese were also banned during WW2. This was also done so that the immigrants and their descendants would integrate into the Brazilian society faster
tokenadult 12y ago
The statutes were found unconstitutional, as the submitted article reports. I read the full Supreme Court opinion on that issue when I was in law school, as that is still a landmark decision in parental rights in education, which is how the issue was framed before the Supreme Court. The case is called Meyer v. State of Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923). http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16175793893966768030&q=Meyer+v.+Nebraska http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1617579389396676... It happens that my own maternal grandfather was born and attended school in Nebraska, and the schools he attended were conducted entirely in the German language. Similarly, my maternal grandmother was born in Colorado, also in a German-speaking community, and received all of her schooling in the German language. But the years from World War I until Meyer v. Nebraska was decided basically killed off German-language primary schooling in the United States, and my aunts and uncles heard German at home and at church growing up, but all learned their school lessons in English. Of course as I knew the family by the 1960s, everyone in all generations spoke English to one another routinely.
reirob 12y ago
In deed almost incredible! Especially considering that during the same time in the Soviet Union speaking German was not forbidden (though it was not well seen by Russians).

by scribu 12y ago

fgp 12y ago

In Brazil German, Italian and Japanese were also banned during WW2. This was also done so that the immigrants and their descendants would integrate into the Brazilian society faster

tokenadult 12y ago

The statutes were found unconstitutional, as the submitted article reports. I read the full Supreme Court opinion on that issue when I was in law school, as that is still a landmark decision in parental rights in education, which is how the issue was framed before the Supreme Court. The case is called Meyer v. State of Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923). http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16175793893966768030&q=Meyer+v.+Nebraska http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1617579389396676... It happens that my own maternal grandfather was born and attended school in Nebraska, and the schools he attended were conducted entirely in the German language. Similarly, my maternal grandmother was born in Colorado, also in a German-speaking community, and received all of her schooling in the German language. But the years from World War I until Meyer v. Nebraska was decided basically killed off German-language primary schooling in the United States, and my aunts and uncles heard German at home and at church growing up, but all learned their school lessons in English. Of course as I knew the family by the 1960s, everyone in all generations spoke English to one another routinely.

reirob 12y ago

In deed almost incredible! Especially considering that during the same time in the Soviet Union speaking German was not forbidden (though it was not well seen by Russians).