You’d think that after nearly 250 years, the U.S. might’ve declared English its official language somewhere along the way. But nope. Until March 2025, English had never been officially recognized by the federal government.
It was used everywhere—government forms, news, presidential speeches, “Wheel of Fortune”—but it was never official. Just a very strong assumption.
That’s like hosting a party at your house every week for 248 years and only now deciding to call it your house.
What Changed?
On March 1st, 2025, the U.S. government finally made it official:
English is now the designated language of the United States.
The presidential order (Executive Order 14224, if you’re collecting them) revokes a 2000 mandate that required federal services to be multilingual. Agencies can still offer help in other languages, but they’re no longer required to.
Why Now?
Honestly? Great question. America has been doing English things in English forever. But officially speaking, this was the first time someone said, “Hey… maybe we should write this down.”
It’s bureaucratically tidy, yes. But it’s also a little mind-blowing that this didn’t happen sometime in the 1800s. Or even the 1900s. Or… last week.
What It Means for Language Learners
If you’re learning English—or teaching it—it’s a strange but memorable milestone. It doesn’t drastically change how the country functions (it already runs on English), but it does highlight how language and law don’t always move in sync.
And it’s a great conversation starter:
“Did you know English only became the U.S.’s official language in 2025?”
“Wait… seriously??”
Yep. Seriously.
A Reminder That Language Is Weird (and Wonderful)
Even the biggest language in the U.S. wasn’t legally ‘official’ for over two centuries. If that’s not a perfect symbol of how strange and fascinating language can be, we don’t know what is.
Hey fellow Linguaholics! It’s me, Marcel. I am the proud owner of linguaholic.com. Languages have always been my passion and I have studied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics and Sinology at the University of Zurich. It is my utmost pleasure to share with all of you guys what I know about languages and linguistics in general.