William Labov Quotes

You can't be an American if you don't speak English. Our public schools should be mandated to teach all children in English.

You know, even growing up going to school, I had teachers that were against bilingual teaching. I never understood that. My parents always had me speak Spanish first knowing I was going to speak English in school.

Printing ballots in multiple languages costs millions of dollars every year. It also discourages immigrants from integrating into American society and gaining the benefits that come from speaking English.

Most Arab Israelis speak Hebrew, but not the other way around. It's about time that changed.

One of the biggest problems is - you know, I've got some Hispanic friends - is that a lot of those folks that don't know English, is primarily because they don't even know Spanish. They don't even know their own language.

There are so many people in the world who cannot read English or French or whatever.

Everybody at home speaks mandarin except me.

Insist on one language. English for all Americans.

Unless you speak English and read well, you'll never be a first-class citizen ... but when you say "official," that becomes a racial slur.

I'm against the idea of force-feeding all of Canada on two languages.

If you are educated in English-medium schools, you get a better view of the world, develop more liberal values, have more gender sensitivity and become more forward looking. But you pay a price because you don't know your own language.

Ability to speak the majority language is not just important for inclusion; it is important for minorities to be able to claim their rights and entitlements.

Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.

Under the Assads, Kurds were forbidden from learning their own language at school, or even from speaking it in the military. The result is a generation of Syrian Kurds, many now in late middle age, who can't write their own language.

The anglophones are Quebecers, as are the French, as are the new Quebecers.

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

In school in Lebanon, we were not allowed to speak Arabic during breaks - it had to be French or English.

After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question.

Well, my first languages are German and Spanish because I was brought up by a Spanish mother and a German father, so I always spoke both languages at home. I'm very thankful that I was brought up in a bilingual house.

I am not anti-English, and I never was.

English should be our official language. Reading and speaking English are requirements to become a citizen.

When everyone at school is speaking one language, and a lot of your classmates' parents also speak it, and you go home and see that your community is different -there is a sense of shame attached to that. It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different.

I am making sure, as the governor of a territory, that our kids speak fluent English. But having said that, I will tell my wife I love her in Spanish, and I will pray in Spanish, and no one from Washington should come down here and tell us how to go about it.

Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been.

Citizens of Canada of whom any child has received or is receiving primary or secondary school instruction in English or French in Canada, have the right to have all their children receive primary and secondary school instruction in the same language.