Donald Trump to declare English as official US language

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Friday making English the official US language.

Under the executive order, agencies will still be able to provide documents and services in languages other than English, with the goal to promote unity, government efficiency and civic engagement, according to the White House.

The executive order would rescind a federal mandate issued by former president Bill Clinton that agencies and other recipients of federal funding are required to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.

Republicans in Congress got the ball rolling this month, introducing bills that would establish English as the official language.

The bill, led by Ohio senator Bernie Moreno, would also establish “a uniform English language rule for naturalisation” of applicants to become US citizens.

One proponent of the bill in Congress, far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, announced the legislation alongside a bill to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

“Both of these are very important pieces of legislation that redirect our government back to putting America and Americans first and must become law,” Ms Greene said in a statement this month.

The bills would provide a stronger mandate in US law than an executive order. Under the US Constitution, executive orders are among the weakest laws and can be overturned as easily as they are signed by the president.

The US has never had an official language at the federal level but the issue has been problematic for certain states.

The use of Spanish in public life, in particular, has sparked controversy over the years, including in Texas, which has a large Spanish-speaking community. In 2011, for example, a Texas state senator demanded that an immigrant rights activist speak English, not his native Spanish, at a legislative hearing.

In adopting an official language, a country recognises that only that language can be used on official documents, taught in schools and used in courts of law. Some states have designated English as their official language.

About 350 languages are spoken in the US. According to the US Census Bureau, some of the most widely spoken languages other than English are Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Arabic.

The US is one of only a handful of countries that do not have a declared official language, and many do not limit it to only one. Bolivia has 37 official languages, Zimbabwe has 16 and South Africa has 11.