I agree with Amos and others who think we need a common language. We need a common language as one of the glues that binds the country. This common language should be required for legal and civic activities.

I live in a community where there is a large proportion of Armenians and Koreans, and, not so many Mexicans, plus assorted Chinese, Indian and Thai. Many have been here for a long time, and many are citizens. The main thoroughfare is rife with signage in those languages, and, fortunately, English. I have my car serviced in Iran (Armenian), my wife has her hair cut in Korea, our house is cleaned bi-weekly in Mexico, and I get my (almost) daily donut from Thailand ...they all are recent immigrants and they all speak English well enough to conduct business, and even more. What they speak when they're at home or with their confreres, I don't care.

When Israel was absorbing the thousands of displaced European Jews in the late 1940s, the first thing they did was give them a crash course in the Hebrew language--most of them spoke Yiddish and the language of their country of origin, but could only read Hebrew for prayer without necessarily understanding what they actually sounded out, and maybe not even that. Israelis knew they needed a common language to integrate these immigrants, and not a polyglot of European languages mucking things up.