Does Gatlinburg have an official language

Gatlinburg, Commissioners:

Gatlinburg, City Manager:

Gateway Foundation:

 

I was in a shop on Glades Road this morning helping my wife who works for some friends a couple of days a week. While I was there some tourists came in to browse. My wife mentioned that everything they were looking at was made in Tennessee. Most locally by the owners, some by friends of owner in Sevier County and a few items by people in Nashville who are friends of the owner. One of the tourists commented that was different that most of the shops they had been in, in Gatlinburg. They then showed us a brochure advertising local businesses. Right square in the middle was an advertisement, We Speak English. Hmmm, we are in Gatlinburg, a quaint mountain city in the middle of the Smokies in Tennessee and we have to explain we speak English? Maybe the sign should have said "Hablamos ingles" or something in Aramaic or Farsi. 

 

You might consider a survey of the tourists to see if it bothers them to not be able to understand the people working in the shops.

 

At a time people are scared of their shadow you may have dodged a bullet when that ½ billion dollar development sponsored by people from the Middle East canceled. Gatlinburg could have become the largest gathering of Muslims east of the Mississippi River and maybe even have had its own Mosque.

 

You might want to suggest to the business owners that they buy Steve Martin's book "How to Speak Well English."

 

In Gatlinburg shouldn't it be assumed we speak English or at least East Tennessean?"

 

John Jenkins

425 Patterson Lane

Gatlinburg, TN 37738

865-430-4427 home

865-803-8179 mobile

jrjenki@yahoo.com