Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Language and linguistics

• "(a) English is the official language of the United States."
• "(b) Executive Order 13166 of August 11, 2000 (Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency), is hereby revoked; nothing in this order, however, requires or directs any change in the services provided by any agency. Agency heads should make decisions as they deem necessary to fulfill their respective agencies' mission and efficiently provide Government services to the American people. Agency heads are not required to amend, remove, or otherwise stop production of documents, products, or other services prepared or offered in languages other than English."

That being said, Executive Orders are not legislation and are limited to the Executive Branch's interpretation of existing law. They can also be overturned by the next president. This EO also seems to be largely symbolic and does not require any substantial changes to federal programs per the NYT, except that agencies are no longer required to support "programs for people with limited English proficiency" per NPR. Usually, from what I can tell as well, official languages of countries are designated either in a country's constitution or through the legislative process.

There have also been attempts to codify English as the official language through legislative means with more teeth, force of law, and would require official documents, laws, communications, and such, to be in English, as mentioned in the article English Language Unity Act and as seen by H.R. 997 from the 118th Congress, but those efforts have never been signed into law. However, there is an argument that the Executive Branch could set policy in this space, though it is unprecedented. There's also a middle ground, such as including a note stating that "English is the official language of the Executive Branch per EO [number], but is not stated in the constitution or in federal law", similar to the way that we currently do for states. There's also an argument to wait and see how folks react. As such here are the options I envisioned, though I am open to other options.

Should we include "English" as the official language of the United States?

• A: Yes, with no qualifications.
• B: No, keep prior status quo.
• C: Yes, with the qualifier that it is not mentioned in the Constitution or in applicable legislation.
• D: State that there is no de jure official language, but mention that an official language has been set by the Executive Branch.
• E: Wait.

Note that there is another RFC taking place at Talk:Languages of the United States § English as official language Extending the RFC's time to cook up more responses by adding an extra timestamp. Tarlby 05:58, 1 April 2025 (UTC)