re : banning of german while flipping through random books at the linguistics library , i fell over something that would be interesting to this discussion . i have n't been following this thread , so this might have been mentioned before . i found a reference to the us supreme court reports , 1922 october term , meyer vs . nebraska , p . 392 - - 403 in steinberg ( 1993 ) an introduction to psycholinguistics , longman . i ' ll quote the passage in full , as it is so well written . it 's in the beginning of chapter 8 . " in may of 1920 , in hamilton county , nebraska , a rural area of the united states , a teacher , mr robert meyer , was arrested for violating state law . mayer had been teaching bible stories in german at zion parochial school to a 10 - year-old boy . nebraska law forbade the teaching of a second language to children under the age of 13 . not only nebraska but 21 other states as well prohibited the teaching of foreign languages , except 'd ead ' languages such as latin and greek . according to nebraska 's 1919 siman act , ' no person . . . shall teach any subject to any person in any language other than the english language . languages other than english may be taught only after a pupil shall have . . . passed the eighth grade . . . . any person who violates any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and , upon conviction , shall be subject to a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars ( $ 25 ) , nor more than one hundred dollars ( $ 100 ) or be confined in the county jail for any period not exceeding thirty days for each offense . ' if found guilty , meyer could have been fined or even sent to jail . the states had passed these laws essentially with the german language as the target , america had just finished a war with germany and there was a hatred of germany and things german , particularly its military values , ideals and political institutions . the law reflected the widespread belief that the german language was the embodiment of all that was evil in german culture and that to teach such a language to young americans would be immoral and corrupting . meyer decided to appeal his case to the supreme court of the state of nebraska . ironically , lawyers for the state of nebraska took essentially the position presented in the german language by the german philosopher , wilhelm von humboldt , in 1836 . that is , a language by its very nature represents the spirit and national character of a people . if this were true , then by teaching them the grammar , structure and vocabulary of the german language , meyer could indeed have been harming american children by making them into german militarists right there on the plains of nebraska . the nebraska supreme court denied meyer 's appeal , but meyer did not submit . he then took his case to the highest court in the country , the united states supreme court , where he won his case . that court overturned his conviction and declared unconstitutional all laws in the united states which forbade the teaching of a foreign language . in its 1922 ruling the court stated as one basis for its decision . ' mere knowledge of the german language cannot reasonably be regarded as harmful . ' we see in this story that a seemingly purely theoretical issue can have very practical consequences in everyday life . in making a legal decision on the matter , the court also made a psycholinguistic decision , on the relationship of language , thought and culture . was the court correct ? it is this question that we shall now consider . '