привет товарищ– or, if you prefer, “Greetings, comrade.”

I’m confused, as you too may be, by President Trump’s recent signing of a bill which makes English this country’s official language. It’s unlikely anybody knows what language or languages appeared first on our chunk of this continent, but I’m guessing it, or they, came from Indigenous peoples. Wampanoag, anyone?

A much later linguistic arrival was probably Spanish, though French may have arrived around then, too. English turned up soon after. These days, if you scroll Main Street in any major American city, you may hear anything from Basque to Urdu spoken or see various sign language dialects.

That’s hardly surprising; we are famously a nation of immigrants. What is surprising is Trump’s selection of English as the language he wants to make “official.”

After all, if we’re now modeling our governance on Russia’s and fawning over Mother Russia’s ruler, we might as well adopt their language, too. It’ll be so much simpler when our new Russian overloads arrive to take charge of us all and pack Donald, who will have served his purpose, off to his lavish retirement да́ча(country estate).Досвиданиягражданин (Goodbye, citizen).

Jane Hunt

Concord