Ms Fouka compared German-American populations in border counties of Ohio and Indiana with their neighbours in adjacent states (who experienced no language ban). She found that those affected by the ban were more likely to marry another German and give their children German names, and less likely to enlist during the second worldwar. Forced assimilation backfired at every level, from the personal to the political.

弗卡女士将俄亥俄州和印第安纳州边境县的德裔美国人与相邻州的德裔美国人(这些州没有语言禁令)进行了比较。她发现，受禁令影响的人更有可能与德国人结婚，并给孩子起德国名字，而在二战期间参军的可能性较小。强迫同化在各个层面都适得其反，从个人层面到政治层面。
Unless the intentionwas not assimilation at all. Sometimes language laws are mostly symbolic. For instance, numerous American states have declared English to be their official tongue (at a federal level, the country doesn’t have one). This seems intended to send a message—“We speak English here”—without doing much to change reality on the ground. Sometimes, though, laws seem designed to make life as hard as possible for immigrants.
除非目的根本不是同化。有时候，语言法则主要是象征性的。例如，美国许多州已经宣布英语为他们的官方语言(在联邦一级，美国没有官方语言)。这似乎意在传递一个信息——“我们在这里说英语”——而没有做太多改变现实。然而，有时法律似乎是为了让移民的生活尽可能艰难。
Take Proposition 227 of 1998, whereby Californian voters eliminated almost all of the state’s bilingual education programmes. Bilingual teachingwas always intended as a bridge to English, but in a polarising campaign itwas portrayed as allowing kids to avoid English altogether. (A few years earlier, another vote had stripped illegal immigrants of state benefits.) A later analysis provided scant evidence that Proposition 227 made much difference to English-learning. But the Republican-led anti-immigration backlash of the1990s led to a counter-backlash: California Latinos, though often religious and socially conservative, have been solidly Democratic since.
以1998年227号提案为例，加州选民取消了该州几乎所有的双语教育项目。双语教学一直被认为是通向英语的桥梁，但在一场两极分化的运动中，双语教学被描绘成让孩子们完全避免使用英语。（几年前，另一项投票剥夺了非法移民的州福利。）后来的分析没有提供足够的证据证明227号提案对英语学习有很大的影响。但上世纪90年代共和党领导的反移民运动引发了应对措施：加州的拉丁裔虽然常常是宗教和社会保守派，但自那以后一直坚定地支持民主党。
California’s conservatives were right to spot a rising cohort of foreign-born residents. They had two options: to try to make them patriotic Americans (and Republican voters) with a positive appeal, or to threaten them with punishments. Choosing the latter, they lost twice, in both language and politics. Californians overwhelmingly repealed Proposition 227 in 2016. The state is riotously multilingual, even as English remains the essential language, as it is in the rest of the country.

加州的保守派人士越来越发现移民是正确的。他们有两种选择：要么用积极的呼吁让他们成为爱国的美国人(以及共和党选民)，要么用惩罚威胁他们。选择后者，他们在语言和政治上都有损失。2016年，加州以压倒性优势废除了227号提案。尽管英语仍是该国的主要语言，但该州的语言却极为丰富多彩，就像在美国其他地方一样。
Just how permissive should receiving countries be? Corine Dehabey, a Syrian- American who helps immigrants learn English in today’s Ohio, thinks that, if policies are too accommodating, there is a risk that people don’t feel any pressure to acquire the language. But if she could make one change, it would be to give them more time to do so. Current policies push newcomers to find work as soon as possible. That leads to doctors and engineers driving taxis, because they have yet to requalify in America.
移民接收国究竟应该多宽容？科琳·德哈贝是一名叙利亚裔美国人，如今在俄亥俄州帮助移民学习英语。她认为，如果政策过于宽松，那么人们就会感觉不到学习语言的压力。但如果她有能力做出一个改变，那么她会给移民更多时间去学习语言。当前的政策督促移民尽快找到工作。这导致很多医生和工程师去干开出租车的工作，因为他们还没有在美国重新获得资格。
Adults often struggle to learn a new language, as Mr Golinkin’s mother did, going from being a psychiatrist in Ukraine to a security guard in America. Some pull it off, as Mr Golinkin’s father did by studying English for years before the move. But nearly all children master their adopted country’s language, as Mr Golinkin (now a writer) did quickly. Children are sponges for languages—and for attitudes, too. Their views of their new homes will forever be shaped by the way they are treated when they arrive.
成年人学习一门新语言通常很难，会和戈林金先生的母亲的情况类似，戈林金母亲在乌克兰是一名精神病学家，来到美国后只能做一名保安。有些人成功学会了，戈林金先生的父亲就在移民之前用了数年学会了英语。但是几乎所有的孩子都掌握了他们所移民的国家的语言，就像戈林金先生(现在是一名作家)很快做到的那样。孩子是语言的海绵，也是态度的海绵。他们对新家乡的看法将永远取决于他们到达时所受到的待遇。
Correction: Johnson’s previous column mistakenly said that “Tuesday” includes the Indo-European root dyeu twice. Dyeu produced the word for day in other languages, but English “day” is thought to be from dhegwh, “to burn”. Sorry.
更正：约翰逊专栏之前错误地说，“Tuesday”一词包含两个印欧词根dyeu。Dyeu在其他语言中产生了day这个词，但是英语中的day被认为是来自dhegwh，意思是“燃烧”。抱歉。

来源：经济学人