If the United States can have a national bird, there’s no reason it cannot also have a national language, though keeping it healthy and thriving may be trickier than protecting the American bald eagle. Several Sunday-morning commentators have asserted the debate over the language bill last week was a silly distraction from more important congressional business. It’s not silly to want a common language to unite a people, though trying to codify it is endearingly French.

The national language bill says that immigrants should know the language, as well as something about the country’s history and culture. It doesn’t, according to news reports, wipe away existing laws that provide for bilingual education and ballots. (Eliminating bilingual signs that warn, for instance, of dangerous ocean currents, it was pointed out, might be considered unsafe. Or at least unsporting.)

But if the country is going to promote a national language, it ought to take special care of particular words – those it has borrowed. They would include commonplace ones such as ambulance, athlete, alarm, bistro, boutique, bucket, bungalow, camaraderie, capsize, caribou, century, coupon, cul de sac, democracy, dentist, fog, hula, kidnap, ketchup, limousine, Massachusetts, menu, mug, museum, mutton, raccoon, smile, ski, soprano, sport, symphony, Uranus, visa, wardrobe, walrus, xenophobia and zest, to name only a few.

These words are easily part of the English language but they have roots elsewhere, making their pedigrees mixed. That’s how it often is. Foreign words are introduced, many eventually find their place in the language and then aren’t foreign any longer. Separating them from their Anglo-Saxon neighbors or preventing other foreign words from taking a place in the language would do little to strengthen conversation and even less to enliven it.

Too obvious? How about, Does anyone think that only those words already in the language should count in a future national lexicon?

And a possible compromise: “Chipotle” need not appear on any government form.