Congress is considering legislation to declare English as America's national language, an issue that returned when the debate over U.S. immigration policy produced the idea among some that the national anthem should be sung in Spanish as well.

Members of Congress, desperately seeking a topic on which to focus the public's attention and distract it from corrupt incumbents and the Iraq war, spotted the national language issue. The Senate thus passed two measures last week that declare English as the nation's dominant language -- a matter that would have to be negotiated with the House.

English as a national language is a complex matter, however, which is another reason to resist codifying it in law.

For one thing, the United States needs to embrace, rather than shun, foreign languages. Americans' record on speaking other languages is appalling, despite the foreign challenges posed by trade, security and the nation's role as a superpower. Foreign Policy magazine reports that 92 percent of American college students don't even study a foreign language. A Roper poll showed that 60 percent of Americans between 18 and 24 couldn't find Iraq on the map; three-quarters of them couldn't locate Israel.

While the desire to legislate English as America's national language is a blind and unthinking chauvinism that can lurch into racism, some advocates make a financial argument. It's true that if a significant portion of American residents knows a language other than English, accommodations must be made in schools, human services and other government agencies -- and that costs money. Whether the efforts are made in Washington, D.C., to integrate numbers of Vietnamese or in the Pittsburgh Public Schools to accommodate Somalis resettled here, it requires public resources.

Even so, the legislation is unnecessary. Immigrants to the United States know quite well that not speaking English is a ferocious handicap in trying to obtain higher-paying employment. They also must be able to speak, read and write English to become U.S. citizens. Second, those who advocate such legislation forget a very important part of American history. Although many of our forbears arrived in the United States not speaking English, did it take legislation for their children to learn the language to get ahead?

It is hard to imagine that Congress cannot find a better use of its time, faced with formidable economic and national security issues, than to bother with such a fundamentally trivial issue.