A county in northern Maryland is under the grave threat of creeping Armenian culture, or so a local lawmaker believes. In Carroll County, Commissioner Haven N. Shoemaker Jr. has introduced legislation that would make English the official language of the county of 168,000 residents.
The Washington Post reports that Shoemaker’s bill came about after he heard that a Washington suburb spent taxpayer money on translating government documents into Armenian. But Carroll County is transforming from a mostly agricultural region into an more diverse exurb of Baltimore, and Shoemaker’s proposal has its detractors:
“It’s divisive,” said Dane Manges, 31, a Manchester resident who works in Cup, a tea bar on Main Street here. He thinks the ordinance distracts from more substantive threats to the community’s traditions and heritage, such as rapid suburbanization. “These things could be maintained without an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality,” he said.
Backward as official-language regulations seem, they do have some popularity in Maryland. In February, Frederick County passed such an ordinance in February; Queen Anne’s County followed suit in May.
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Carroll County’s commissioners will debate making English their official language at a hearing next month.
