Should english be the main language in america

Introduction: Thanks to my opponent and everyone on Earth for this glorious debate. I hope it will be stimulating and enjoyable intellectually and perhaps in other ways as well. My opponent thinks that "english" (which I assume is the same as English, the language I speak) should be the main language in "this nation" (by which I assume he means America, because that is what the title says). He has very specific reasons for this, which I will go into in a moment. First off, I think we can agree that English is the main language of the United States. I'm too lazy to look up a source proving this obvious fact, so instead I'm going to do a survey of my own. Out of the sample of participants in this debate, one out of two individuals is clearly literate in English. If half of the population knows a language then it can safely be considered the main language. The question at hand, however, is not whether English is the main language in America, but whether it should be. My opponent's reasons for why it should be are limited and not very logical. There are far more compelling reasons why English should not be the main language in the United States. The first reason my opponent offers is that English "brought up this nation." As far as I know, America has not moved upwards or downwards significantly in its history. Therefore, I must assume that my opponent uses the word up figuratively. He must be arguing that English has allowed America to rise from it's humble beginning to the glorious, nacho cheese-stained pedestal on which it now stands. This is a grave insult. English never did anything to help advance America. Indeed, it is abstract concept and therefore incapable of any action, including the "bringing up" of something. America has reached its current glory due to the efforts its brave, hard working, and might I say extremely sexy populace. To suggest that we could achieve our current level of gluttony and excess only through the use of English is denigrating to Americans everywhere. My opponent's claim that we should "respect" English is unfounded as well. Respecting English is fairly useless because it is, as I mentioned early, and abstract concept. English is not capable of benefiting as a result of our respect for it. Furthermore, English has none done anything to warrant respect. It has not done anything at all because it is not capable of action. Now for my arguments against English being the primary language. Recall the scientific research survey I preformed earlier. In the sample of 2 participants in this debate, I have found that only one of them seems fully fluent in English. According to my survey, half of the population of America shows a limited understanding of the spelling, grammar, and punctuation rules of English. We cannot have English as our primary language only half of our population is proficient in it. Google image searching reveals that this problem may be more pervasive than my study has indicated: http://leiterreports.typepad.com... Wonderful though English may be, I propose that America is simply not ready for it yet. My alternative is as follows: http://en.wikipedia.org... Basic English, or Simple English, is an artificial language designed for those who are learning English but are not quite ready to converse in the full language yet. It uses simple grammatical rules and a short, 850 word list. This language is designed for practicality and to allow beginners to practice and improve their English skills. In order to better suit the verbal intelligence of the typical American, I propose that this language should be adopted as our official language and used instead of traditional English. Everyone will be able to learn Simple English in a fairly short time, including immigrants who have no background in the language at all. This will allow everyone to converse without over-stressing their abilities. Eventually, when America is ready, we can start to introduce new words and grammatical concepts.