New York City – German Nearly Official US Language
German Nearly Official US Language.
August 16.
Imagine… It was close. German Nearly Official US Language. Imagine how different the world would be today had that been the case. Think of the wars…
I was told recently that the United States of America had a vote when the country was being formed as to which language they would speak in the country; English or German. There were nearly as many German immigrants as English at that time. A language vote was put in place and English language won out by just one vote. Now I do not have official facts on this, but this is pretty incredible to think about.
Had German been the official language of the U.S., wow would that ever mean the world would be very different. The U.S. would have likely allied with the axis who they would have felt a brethren with during the wars. Had that been the case there would have been no World War II because World War I would have had a much different outcome for Germany. But that aside, suppose there had been a World War II. Imagine if the U.S. would have fought on the German side on behalf of the Nazi’s and Germany would have won the Second World War. Think of what that would have meant for Europe. It would be a very German speaking and controlled country. New York City would be Neu Kraut Stadt, this entire country would speak German, and between German speaking Europe and German speaking North America, it would be the most important language on the earth and there would be two superpowers of German that basically controlled the earth. Wow. That seems dark think about. In my mind, there are no blue skies in that world. My biased high-school history classes erased any German blue skies years ago. It is still that way in my mind after living in Germany for much time. It is crazy how knowledge and thoughts of youth stay with a person forever.
That makes me wonder what would have happened to Canada. The French had it and then the English took it from them. Now, what if that stayed the same way, rather than German U.S. marching in to take control? Would that mean that in Canada we would speak English and French in Quebec just as the case is now, or would influence from the U.S. have pressured Canada to speak German as well to be able to trade and grow. Or, would Canada be this mysterious weird country like Greenland is, sitting above German speaking U.S. that spoke little world used English and French and had an economy similar to that of Mexico or worse, Venezuela? That is an interesting thought. The entire world changed by one person’s vote…
I bought my plane ticket to fly from New York to Regina in three days. I am the last minute plane ticket champion. But I have learned some very valuable tricks by buying last minute tickets and manipulating the system. For one, it is important to search ‘incognito’ so that no cookies are stores on your computer and the price does not go up on you automatically. For two, when I went though skyscanner.net my settings were still on ‘Colombia’. The price for the flight if I left my settings on Colombia was $26 USD cheaper. Really. I tried the tickets as Irish, Canadian, American, South African, Chinese, and New Zealandian (That can not be a real word!). So, I bought the ticket though the website through Spanish and that actual saved me $26. Even if I changed the website from English to Spanish once I was redirected, the price went up $26 with an English speaking website. That is absurd. This is a good example about how a second language can really help your life. But, also, it shows how important it is to dig deep when buying plane tickets. $26 is a lot of extra money on a $275 ticket.
Irmante was very sick today so we stayed in for the night after we went for a walk and I ate like a pig making myself sick. I am finally getting rest. I have not had any of that since December. I blame the fact that I seem to have aged on the image of long hair, but I am sure the past 8 months have taken a toll on my body. It needs some nourishing rest to freshen up…
