If you can read this sentence, you can talk with a scientist.
March 15, 2015 3:51 PM Subscribe
Science once communicated in a polyglot of tongues, but now English rules alone. How did this happen – and at what cost?
communicated in a polyglot of tongues
Writers once consulted with editors, but now...
posted by Sys Rq at 4:09 PM on March 15, 2015 [18 favorites]
Writers once consulted with editors, but now...
posted by Sys Rq at 4:09 PM on March 15, 2015 [18 favorites]
So, how did it happen? And at what cost? The writer glimpses at answering the first, but is oddly bashful and muddled answering the second.
posted by Thing at 4:09 PM on March 15, 2015
posted by Thing at 4:09 PM on March 15, 2015
I think that one implied answer to the second question is that there are people who are excluded from science because, although they are good at science, they are bad at learning English.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:12 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:12 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
When writing to international chemists, Swedes used Latin; when conversing with mining engineers, they opted for Swedish.
Replace "Latin" with "English" and I'm pretty sure you'd have the same situation today.
posted by fatbird at 4:12 PM on March 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Replace "Latin" with "English" and I'm pretty sure you'd have the same situation today.
posted by fatbird at 4:12 PM on March 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
In le passato, summarios de alcun discursos scientific esseva scribite in Interlingua, qual debe esser legebla a prime vista. Infortunatemente iste lingua non es multo familiar.
posted by graymouser at 4:19 PM on March 15, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by graymouser at 4:19 PM on March 15, 2015 [11 favorites]
Correct or not, I like the sound of "polyglot of tongues." (Or maybe "poly-glut"?)
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:22 PM on March 15, 2015
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:22 PM on March 15, 2015
At one time there was a PhD requirement at some universities, including the University of California, that one had to be able to translate technical material from a relevant language.
French for paleontology and inorganic chemistry, German for organic chemistry or Russian for goodness knows what. Sounds as if that is obsolete?
FWIW organic chemists in the '70's published in Italian, Swedish, Japanese (usually worth translating),
German (some authors a bit iffy) and Russian (mostly not worth translating).
It really wasn't that onerous - I'd rather struggle through good German/Italian/etc than bad English.
posted by speug at 4:24 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
French for paleontology and inorganic chemistry, German for organic chemistry or Russian for goodness knows what. Sounds as if that is obsolete?
FWIW organic chemists in the '70's published in Italian, Swedish, Japanese (usually worth translating),
German (some authors a bit iffy) and Russian (mostly not worth translating).
It really wasn't that onerous - I'd rather struggle through good German/Italian/etc than bad English.
posted by speug at 4:24 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
My university recently did away with the foreign language requirement for linguistics PhDs — so yeah, I think it's safe to say that it isn't as common as it once was.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:27 PM on March 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:27 PM on March 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
It's weird that the author insists on the "polyglot" experience of the Renaissance while offering proof after proof of the dominance of Latin: Gauss wrote his private notebooks in Latin, the Russian academics used it; scholars in England, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Italy all wrote in Latin when they wanted to reach a larger audience. Greek and Arabic were used only by a small minority of Westerners.
He seems nostalgic for the time when French, German, and Russian were widely used for science. And no doubt that was nice for those peoples, but how helpful was it for Italians, Hungarians, Swedes, or Czechs? Or, when they started modernizing, Chinese or Japanese?
posted by zompist at 4:27 PM on March 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
He seems nostalgic for the time when French, German, and Russian were widely used for science. And no doubt that was nice for those peoples, but how helpful was it for Italians, Hungarians, Swedes, or Czechs? Or, when they started modernizing, Chinese or Japanese?
posted by zompist at 4:27 PM on March 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
I think that one implied answer to the second question is that there are people who are excluded from science because, although they are good at science, they are bad at learning English.
But it's a bad argument against monolingualism, which is why he drops it and runs instead of working through its implications. If the choice of any one language is exclusionary to those who don't speak it, so the choice of more languages is more exclusionary.
(Ideally, somebody would work out a "scientific notation" which would make scientific ideas as universal as mathematics without the need for any language. Don't hold out hope though, as they've been working on it for four hundreds years or more.)
posted by Thing at 4:36 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
But it's a bad argument against monolingualism, which is why he drops it and runs instead of working through its implications. If the choice of any one language is exclusionary to those who don't speak it, so the choice of more languages is more exclusionary.
(Ideally, somebody would work out a "scientific notation" which would make scientific ideas as universal as mathematics without the need for any language. Don't hold out hope though, as they've been working on it for four hundreds years or more.)
posted by Thing at 4:36 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Seems unlikely the community would revert to Latin, how about Esperanto? That would remove the americanish stigma.
posted by sammyo at 4:42 PM on March 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 4:42 PM on March 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
It isn't just science. Since January 2008 "all Air Traffic Controllers and Flight Crew Members engaged in or in contact with international flights must be proficient in the English language as a general spoken medium."
posted by eye of newt at 4:43 PM on March 15, 2015
posted by eye of newt at 4:43 PM on March 15, 2015
At one time there was a PhD requirement at some universities, including the University of California, that one had to be able to translate technical material from a relevant language.
They still do. Depending on the subject, it's often a fairly token requirement--you often get a dictionary and a fair bit of time. Partway through my PhD (in math), my department dropped from requiring two languages to one (a choice of French, German, Russian and Italian). You got to choose your examiner and there was one professor who was known to be ridiculously easy--he'd hand you a paper on a Friday and tell you to come back on Monday with it translated. This, however, is incredibly tedious, particularly if you know the language. I picked a professor who notionally took it seriously, but, in reality, was the easiest thing possible if you had a passing knowledge of the language. I was sent to the library to pick "some book in German", he'd pick a section, I'd go off for an hour and come back with it translated. However, if I wanted to try translating it out loud on the fly in his office, I was welcome to do that and we could save ourselves some time. Thus, it turned out I spent more time waiting for him to finish his office hours than actually translating.
Having left academia, it's actually noticeable to me that it's unusual among my coworkers that I have at least a passing knowledge of three languages. I liked languages more than the average person in the math department, but virtually everyone who did similar math to me had some knowledge of French.
posted by hoyland at 4:43 PM on March 15, 2015
They still do. Depending on the subject, it's often a fairly token requirement--you often get a dictionary and a fair bit of time. Partway through my PhD (in math), my department dropped from requiring two languages to one (a choice of French, German, Russian and Italian). You got to choose your examiner and there was one professor who was known to be ridiculously easy--he'd hand you a paper on a Friday and tell you to come back on Monday with it translated. This, however, is incredibly tedious, particularly if you know the language. I picked a professor who notionally took it seriously, but, in reality, was the easiest thing possible if you had a passing knowledge of the language. I was sent to the library to pick "some book in German", he'd pick a section, I'd go off for an hour and come back with it translated. However, if I wanted to try translating it out loud on the fly in his office, I was welcome to do that and we could save ourselves some time. Thus, it turned out I spent more time waiting for him to finish his office hours than actually translating.
Having left academia, it's actually noticeable to me that it's unusual among my coworkers that I have at least a passing knowledge of three languages. I liked languages more than the average person in the math department, but virtually everyone who did similar math to me had some knowledge of French.
posted by hoyland at 4:43 PM on March 15, 2015
Se vi povas legi ĉi frazo, oni povas paroli kun sciencisto en la estonteco!
posted by sammyo at 4:43 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 4:43 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Didn't Feynman have an anecdote about learning the wrong kind of Portuguese when he was asked to speak to a scientific congress in Brazil and their official language being English, they changed it following his (I imagine amazing) lecture?
posted by parmanparman at 4:43 PM on March 15, 2015
posted by parmanparman at 4:43 PM on March 15, 2015
My father's a biologist and I know he was required to "know" German for his Ph.D. back in the day (and since he was studying under a native German speaker with rather high standards, this was something of a hurdle). When I was studying philosophy, we were supposed to know German plus either French, Latin, or Greek...but philosophy being a very historically-oriented subject (not enough, these days, in my opinion), that requirement makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised to see foreign (er...non-English) language requirements disappear from the sciences.
posted by uosuaq at 4:46 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by uosuaq at 4:46 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seems unlikely the community would revert to Latin, how about Esperanto? That would remove the americanish stigma.
Yes. And it would have zero utility outside academia. (And both those languages use our alphabet, so we'd still have a leg up.)
posted by Sys Rq at 4:48 PM on March 15, 2015
Yes. And it would have zero utility outside academia. (And both those languages use our alphabet, so we'd still have a leg up.)
posted by Sys Rq at 4:48 PM on March 15, 2015
antirez (the author of Redis) explains what it's like to be a non-native speaker in the tech industry: English has been my pain for 15 years
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:01 PM on March 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:01 PM on March 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
How many promising students are shunted out of a scientific career because they have a hard time with English, and not with multivariable calculus?
The author could have expanded on this a bit more. One would think that if people were previously able to learn three languages along with the science, having to learn English wouldn't really shut people out of science anyway. ...?
My own experience with this from when I worked in laboratories in German-speaking countries: I cringed when I realized that having English as a first language was regarded as such an asset. I noticed that the institutes I worked at offered workshops to help science students from non-Anglophone countries brush up on their English, because struggling with English would sort of bog everything else down. For example, my peers who didn't have English as their first language probably didn't have their oral presentations rated as positively as those given by presenters from the UK or the US, even though the quality of science was equal.
One instance I most vividly remember was when I learned that one of my colleagues decided to not put as much effort into his presentation together because, he in his words, "My English isn't good anyway, so nobody's going to pay much attention."
posted by gemutlichkeit at 5:12 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
The author could have expanded on this a bit more. One would think that if people were previously able to learn three languages along with the science, having to learn English wouldn't really shut people out of science anyway. ...?
My own experience with this from when I worked in laboratories in German-speaking countries: I cringed when I realized that having English as a first language was regarded as such an asset. I noticed that the institutes I worked at offered workshops to help science students from non-Anglophone countries brush up on their English, because struggling with English would sort of bog everything else down. For example, my peers who didn't have English as their first language probably didn't have their oral presentations rated as positively as those given by presenters from the UK or the US, even though the quality of science was equal.
One instance I most vividly remember was when I learned that one of my colleagues decided to not put as much effort into his presentation together because, he in his words, "My English isn't good anyway, so nobody's going to pay much attention."
posted by gemutlichkeit at 5:12 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Se vi povas legi ĉi tiun frazon, vi povas paroli kun sciencisto en la estonteco!
Mi korektigis tion por vi.
posted by graymouser at 5:20 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Mi korektigis tion por vi.
posted by graymouser at 5:20 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seems unlikely the community would revert to Latin, how about Esperanto? That would remove the americanish stigma.
Esperanto is very idiosyncratic, which I say with love as a speaker and fan of the language. It's probably almost as doomed as Latin for these purposes.
Interlingua, which I used in my comment up above, was designed by a linguist as a common form of the shared vocabulary of the Romance languages and English. If you wanted a "compromise" language, Interlingua would be a better choice. It has actually been used for abstracts on the basis of its readability "a prime vista" (at first sight) for educated speakers of English or a Romance language. Ironically, most supporters of Interlingua have been what Alexander Gode called "Esperantists," that is people who wanted to use it as a general purpose language.
posted by graymouser at 5:32 PM on March 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Esperanto is very idiosyncratic, which I say with love as a speaker and fan of the language. It's probably almost as doomed as Latin for these purposes.
Interlingua, which I used in my comment up above, was designed by a linguist as a common form of the shared vocabulary of the Romance languages and English. If you wanted a "compromise" language, Interlingua would be a better choice. It has actually been used for abstracts on the basis of its readability "a prime vista" (at first sight) for educated speakers of English or a Romance language. Ironically, most supporters of Interlingua have been what Alexander Gode called "Esperantists," that is people who wanted to use it as a general purpose language.
posted by graymouser at 5:32 PM on March 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
My evolutionary biology/ecology PhD has no language requirement. People certainly do pay attention to language study if it's relevant to their work--for example, there are a few labs who do work in Central and South America and they all have several Spanish speakers, I've seen someone argue successfully that his fluent Russian would be an asset in conducting international research, etc. etc. But the papers are nearly all in English in my field, unless they are coming from a Canadian lab in which case they are frequently presented both in English and French. And I also saw one of my yearmates basically fail our core course because at the time his English wasn't quite the best, rather than because he didn't know the material. (He did quite well the second-go round as his language skills dramatically improved and is still in the program.)
I seem to recall hearing somewhere, though, that in a couple of fields--paleontology comes to mind--that it can be an asset to read Mandarin as there's a lot coming out of Chinese universities these days. Is that accurate? Barchan, do you know?
posted by sciatrix at 5:34 PM on March 15, 2015
I seem to recall hearing somewhere, though, that in a couple of fields--paleontology comes to mind--that it can be an asset to read Mandarin as there's a lot coming out of Chinese universities these days. Is that accurate? Barchan, do you know?
posted by sciatrix at 5:34 PM on March 15, 2015
Sounds as if that is obsolete?
It really depends on what you're doing. In linguistics, there is still work being done in languages other than English--and access to older work can also be important. But how much of that work exists really depends on what you're doing. I need reading knowledge of four languages to access everything I need; an experimental phonetician can get by in just English.
So, back to the four languages thing. It so happens that I'm interested in a subfield of linguistics where English has less of a stranglehold. Does this mean that people with a native language other than English get out of learning the language? No! They learn English, and French, and German, and ...
And that's the problem with getting rid of English. This barrier to entry wouldn't just go away. Non-English speaking scientists would still need access to works that aren't in their native language; it would just be a different language, or several different languages.
I think that you can make a valid (if idealistic) argument that it would be nice if we were all on the same footing--if no one was automatically advantaged by speaking the lingua franca of science natively. That would require switching to a created language like Esperanto or Interlingua, though, which is never going to happen. They simply don't have the cultural clout.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:48 PM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
It really depends on what you're doing. In linguistics, there is still work being done in languages other than English--and access to older work can also be important. But how much of that work exists really depends on what you're doing. I need reading knowledge of four languages to access everything I need; an experimental phonetician can get by in just English.
So, back to the four languages thing. It so happens that I'm interested in a subfield of linguistics where English has less of a stranglehold. Does this mean that people with a native language other than English get out of learning the language? No! They learn English, and French, and German, and ...
And that's the problem with getting rid of English. This barrier to entry wouldn't just go away. Non-English speaking scientists would still need access to works that aren't in their native language; it would just be a different language, or several different languages.
I think that you can make a valid (if idealistic) argument that it would be nice if we were all on the same footing--if no one was automatically advantaged by speaking the lingua franca of science natively. That would require switching to a created language like Esperanto or Interlingua, though, which is never going to happen. They simply don't have the cultural clout.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:48 PM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
> If you wanted a "compromise" language, Interlingua would be a better choice
If they've dropped the copyright on the official lexicon, that is. Back in the 90s, I offered to do some pro-bono computational work for the the UK Interlingua group. They wanted to charge me ₤25 just to access their word lists, as they said they were copyright or some such tosh.
posted by scruss at 5:56 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
If they've dropped the copyright on the official lexicon, that is. Back in the 90s, I offered to do some pro-bono computational work for the the UK Interlingua group. They wanted to charge me ₤25 just to access their word lists, as they said they were copyright or some such tosh.
posted by scruss at 5:56 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Kutsuwamushi: That would require switching to a created language like Esperanto or Interlingua, though, which is never going to happen. They simply don't have the cultural clout.
Switching to an artificial language would have another problem as well; it would exclude all non-scientists from scientific discourse. Unless the goal is to create some kind of universal language for everyone to use. In which case, good luck.
posted by Mitrovarr at 6:01 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Switching to an artificial language would have another problem as well; it would exclude all non-scientists from scientific discourse. Unless the goal is to create some kind of universal language for everyone to use. In which case, good luck.
posted by Mitrovarr at 6:01 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's Network Effect. That's all.
It wasn't preordained that English would become the language of choice, but there was so much work being done in English, and written about in English, that English became the language of choice.
It doesn't have anything to do with fairness. Network effect is driven solely by utility: if you write in English you have a bigger audience available. If you can read English, you have more material available for you to read. So there's incentive for you to learn English and do your writing in English, which adds to the value of English for everyone else.
So there's a strong positive feedback loop.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:04 PM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
It wasn't preordained that English would become the language of choice, but there was so much work being done in English, and written about in English, that English became the language of choice.
It doesn't have anything to do with fairness. Network effect is driven solely by utility: if you write in English you have a bigger audience available. If you can read English, you have more material available for you to read. So there's incentive for you to learn English and do your writing in English, which adds to the value of English for everyone else.
So there's a strong positive feedback loop.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:04 PM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
Seems unlikely the community would revert to Latin, how about Esperanto? That would remove the americanish stigma.
Interlingua, which I used in my comment up above, was designed by a linguist as a common form of the shared vocabulary of the Romance languages and English.
The stigma, I think, is not "America", or not just America. The stigma is "European colonialism". Those highly-educated people who have a hard time with English are less likely to be speakers of Dutch or Portuguese than they are to be speakers of Hindi and Mandarin which don't even share an alphabet. I mean, not that it's easy for non-English-speakers generally, but all of this seems to uncomfortably suggest that the priority is making sure that white people can communicate about science because white people are obviously doing all the important science. I don't see how one fixes all the baggage that goes with this by replacing English with a constructed language that is born out of all the same assumptions about whose contributions matter most.
posted by Sequence at 6:14 PM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
Interlingua, which I used in my comment up above, was designed by a linguist as a common form of the shared vocabulary of the Romance languages and English.
The stigma, I think, is not "America", or not just America. The stigma is "European colonialism". Those highly-educated people who have a hard time with English are less likely to be speakers of Dutch or Portuguese than they are to be speakers of Hindi and Mandarin which don't even share an alphabet. I mean, not that it's easy for non-English-speakers generally, but all of this seems to uncomfortably suggest that the priority is making sure that white people can communicate about science because white people are obviously doing all the important science. I don't see how one fixes all the baggage that goes with this by replacing English with a constructed language that is born out of all the same assumptions about whose contributions matter most.
posted by Sequence at 6:14 PM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
[graymouser, we don't do the KTPV thing around here] {/}
posted by tigrrrlily at 6:19 PM on March 15, 2015
posted by tigrrrlily at 6:19 PM on March 15, 2015
It's Network Effect. That's all.
It wasn't preordained that English would become the language of choice, but there was so much work being done in English, and written about in English, that English became the language of choice.
Yes. But this Network Effect may differ, according to fields. My university requires anyone seeking a Masters in Art or Art History to demonstrate fluency in Italian or French.
posted by charlie don't surf at 6:56 PM on March 15, 2015
It wasn't preordained that English would become the language of choice, but there was so much work being done in English, and written about in English, that English became the language of choice.
Yes. But this Network Effect may differ, according to fields. My university requires anyone seeking a Masters in Art or Art History to demonstrate fluency in Italian or French.
posted by charlie don't surf at 6:56 PM on March 15, 2015
How about English written in the Chinese writing system? Or in Unicode wingdings. ♲.
posted by XMLicious at 7:11 PM on March 15, 2015
posted by XMLicious at 7:11 PM on March 15, 2015
as universal as mathematics without the need for any language
I'm a mathematician; I mean no offense, but I lolled at (my interpretation of) this idea. Mathematics gets communicated essentially in a natural language, just like anything else. There are ambiguities, there is good and bad writing, etc.
I wish that there were some perfect formal language that would communicate the Platonic Essence of mathematical ideas (and make it impossible to write incorrect things!), but as it is, we write primarily in English. I've had to read some recent math in French now and again, but I don't read German, Russian, etc. and that's never been much of an impediment. My (early 2010s) PhD had no non-English language requirement (although I got my PhD in Quebec and my thesis' abstract had to be submitted in English and French; I don't know if it was allowable to submit the whole thing in French).
There's something of a parallel mathematical universe in Russian, I believe: there are certain facts known as e.g. "the A-B theorem", where A is the name of the eastern bloc type, and B the westerner, who independently proved the theorem, unaware of the other's work due to cultural/linguistic/political situations (e.g., I believe, one of the most important facts in my field, the Milnor-Svarc lemma).
posted by busted_crayons at 7:24 PM on March 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
I'm a mathematician; I mean no offense, but I lolled at (my interpretation of) this idea. Mathematics gets communicated essentially in a natural language, just like anything else. There are ambiguities, there is good and bad writing, etc.
I wish that there were some perfect formal language that would communicate the Platonic Essence of mathematical ideas (and make it impossible to write incorrect things!), but as it is, we write primarily in English. I've had to read some recent math in French now and again, but I don't read German, Russian, etc. and that's never been much of an impediment. My (early 2010s) PhD had no non-English language requirement (although I got my PhD in Quebec and my thesis' abstract had to be submitted in English and French; I don't know if it was allowable to submit the whole thing in French).
There's something of a parallel mathematical universe in Russian, I believe: there are certain facts known as e.g. "the A-B theorem", where A is the name of the eastern bloc type, and B the westerner, who independently proved the theorem, unaware of the other's work due to cultural/linguistic/political situations (e.g., I believe, one of the most important facts in my field, the Milnor-Svarc lemma).
posted by busted_crayons at 7:24 PM on March 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
How about English written in the Chinese writing system?
We could all write in Chinese script without having to learn each other's spoken languages. Then we'd all understand each other's papers, but conferences would be Babel all over again.
posted by Segundus at 9:19 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
We could all write in Chinese script without having to learn each other's spoken languages. Then we'd all understand each other's papers, but conferences would be Babel all over again.
posted by Segundus at 9:19 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seems unlikely the community would revert to Latin, how about Esperanto? That would remove the americanish stigma.
Here in Ottawa the coffeeshop I frequent has a flyer up by some enthusiast trying to rustle up Esperanto language learners, who could then talk to a population of some 100,000 - 2,000,000 people. Or they can walk across the river, and find themselves in Quebec, which has 8,200,000 francophones. Not counting the francophones that make up 10-15% of the population here in Ontario.
So it seems a little silly.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:30 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Here in Ottawa the coffeeshop I frequent has a flyer up by some enthusiast trying to rustle up Esperanto language learners, who could then talk to a population of some 100,000 - 2,000,000 people. Or they can walk across the river, and find themselves in Quebec, which has 8,200,000 francophones. Not counting the francophones that make up 10-15% of the population here in Ontario.
So it seems a little silly.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:30 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
How about English written in the Chinese writing system?
Somebody has already thought of this. Spoiler: it changes everything.
posted by acb at 5:21 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Somebody has already thought of this. Spoiler: it changes everything.
posted by acb at 5:21 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think Lysenkoism pretty much took the Russian language out of scientific prominence.
posted by Renoroc at 5:43 AM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Renoroc at 5:43 AM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Didn't Feynman have an anecdote about learning the wrong kind of Portuguese when he was asked to speak to a scientific congress in Brazil and their official language being English, they changed it following his (I imagine amazing) lecture?
Anecdote is here. Basically, he was invited to speak at a Brazilian conference, he assumed it would be in Portuguese, and at the time he'd been living in Brazil only a short while so he had only very rudimentary knowledge of Portuguese. So he worked out his lecture in his version of simplified Portuguese and then had his students work with it to correct grammar etc.
So he gets to the conference, and the first lecture is a Brazilian speaking in English, the second lecture the same. Feynman can't understand a word of either. So he gets up to give his speech and prefaces it by saying that he didn't realize the official language of the conference was English, but he'd prepared his talk in Portuguese, so he'll have to give it as written.
Apparently it made a big impression, because after that speech, all the succeeding speeches at the conference were given in Portuguese.
posted by flug at 7:39 AM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Anecdote is here. Basically, he was invited to speak at a Brazilian conference, he assumed it would be in Portuguese, and at the time he'd been living in Brazil only a short while so he had only very rudimentary knowledge of Portuguese. So he worked out his lecture in his version of simplified Portuguese and then had his students work with it to correct grammar etc.
So he gets to the conference, and the first lecture is a Brazilian speaking in English, the second lecture the same. Feynman can't understand a word of either. So he gets up to give his speech and prefaces it by saying that he didn't realize the official language of the conference was English, but he'd prepared his talk in Portuguese, so he'll have to give it as written.
Apparently it made a big impression, because after that speech, all the succeeding speeches at the conference were given in Portuguese.
posted by flug at 7:39 AM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
It isn't just science. Since January 2008 "all Air Traffic Controllers and Flight Crew Members engaged in or in contact with international flights must be proficient in the English language as a general spoken medium."
There are very sound safety reasons for this one, though. Prior to that requirement there were numerous air disasters which could be tied directly to the lack of fluency in a common language between pilots and ATC. Unlike a journal publication, where there is time for, perhaps, professional translators to remove barriers, in an air situation you must be able to rapidly and reliably communicate when necessary.
It's also worth noting that international pilots may communicate with ATC in the language spoken at the ground station if it is preferable, but both sides must be able to use English upon request.
Of course, the question comes up, "why English?", but well.... network effects, as stated above. This is fundamentally different from the main thesis of TFA, though, because there is a timeliness requirement that isn't present in the world of science.
posted by jammer at 12:13 PM on March 16, 2015
There are very sound safety reasons for this one, though. Prior to that requirement there were numerous air disasters which could be tied directly to the lack of fluency in a common language between pilots and ATC. Unlike a journal publication, where there is time for, perhaps, professional translators to remove barriers, in an air situation you must be able to rapidly and reliably communicate when necessary.
It's also worth noting that international pilots may communicate with ATC in the language spoken at the ground station if it is preferable, but both sides must be able to use English upon request.
Of course, the question comes up, "why English?", but well.... network effects, as stated above. This is fundamentally different from the main thesis of TFA, though, because there is a timeliness requirement that isn't present in the world of science.
posted by jammer at 12:13 PM on March 16, 2015
One of the most important reasons English took over as the language of science was that between 1946 and about 1960 there just wasn't a whole lot of science being done in Europe because the whole place had been bombed into rubble. Meanwhile, American industry and academia came out of the war healthy and rich, and got 15 years without any competition. (Also the UK wasn't as badly crippled as the others, but their work was also English.)
By the end of that time, English had gained such a lead over every other language that network effect proceeded to lock in that lead.
The only language during that era which even tried to compete was Russian, but Russian science was handicapped by political expedience (e.g. Lysenkoism). They did some good work, but not enough to challenge English's lead. Also, too much of it was total garbage because of political interference.
If WWII hadn't happened, I think that German would have ended up as the language of science. It effectively was at the end of the 19th Century.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:53 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
By the end of that time, English had gained such a lead over every other language that network effect proceeded to lock in that lead.
The only language during that era which even tried to compete was Russian, but Russian science was handicapped by political expedience (e.g. Lysenkoism). They did some good work, but not enough to challenge English's lead. Also, too much of it was total garbage because of political interference.
If WWII hadn't happened, I think that German would have ended up as the language of science. It effectively was at the end of the 19th Century.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:53 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
If WWII hadn't happened, I think that German would have ended up as the language of science. It effectively was at the end of the 19th Century.
That pretty much ended with WWI. Until then, German was the second most common language in the US, and in many school systems (especially in the Midwest) German was the only language of instruction. Then WWI happened and nobody in the US wanted to be German-American anymore, they all wanted to be Americans.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:59 PM on March 16, 2015
That pretty much ended with WWI. Until then, German was the second most common language in the US, and in many school systems (especially in the Midwest) German was the only language of instruction. Then WWI happened and nobody in the US wanted to be German-American anymore, they all wanted to be Americans.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:59 PM on March 16, 2015
That pretty much ended with WWI.
German fades in the US after the First World War, as you say, but that's different from it fading in science. I can only speak to math, but I'd put the Second World War as the turning point, for the reasons Chocolate Pickle mentioned, plus the loss of a generation of Jewish mathematicians in Europe, either to emigration before the war or to the Holocaust. An awful lot of the people who got out ended up in the US and started writing in English.
posted by hoyland at 8:03 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
German fades in the US after the First World War, as you say, but that's different from it fading in science. I can only speak to math, but I'd put the Second World War as the turning point, for the reasons Chocolate Pickle mentioned, plus the loss of a generation of Jewish mathematicians in Europe, either to emigration before the war or to the Holocaust. An awful lot of the people who got out ended up in the US and started writing in English.
posted by hoyland at 8:03 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Just as anecdata, my American grandfather (born in 1917) told me that the reason he didn't choose a chemistry major when he started college in 1935 was that German was a course requirement for chemistry, and he didn't want to learn German. (Not clear to me whether this was because he disliked Germans in 1935, or disliked learning languages!) I asked why you'd have to learn German to get a chemistry degree, and he said it was because a large fraction of the scientific literature was published in German at that time.
I've often thought of that conversation when meeting other scientists for whom English was a second language. It seemed like such an unreasonable requirement when he said that, making someone learn a whole new language on top of learning the science, but I know dozens of people (many of them Indian and Chinese) who've done just that. I'm sure there are more who, like my grandfather, were put off by it. But would they have been less put off had they been required to learn German instead of, or as well as, English?
(He went on to get a degree in economics, fight in WWII, and then work his family farm for the rest of his life. But he stayed interested in science. It was his subscriptions to Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Discover, National Geographic, etc that helped spark my own interest in science, as a child.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:29 AM on March 17, 2015
I've often thought of that conversation when meeting other scientists for whom English was a second language. It seemed like such an unreasonable requirement when he said that, making someone learn a whole new language on top of learning the science, but I know dozens of people (many of them Indian and Chinese) who've done just that. I'm sure there are more who, like my grandfather, were put off by it. But would they have been less put off had they been required to learn German instead of, or as well as, English?
(He went on to get a degree in economics, fight in WWII, and then work his family farm for the rest of his life. But he stayed interested in science. It was his subscriptions to Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Discover, National Geographic, etc that helped spark my own interest in science, as a child.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:29 AM on March 17, 2015
My dad, while getting his PhD in Sociology at Cornell in the '70s, needed to show proficiency in two languages beside his own. English was one of them, as he's a native Spanish speaker, and he was allowed to claim PL/I, one of the first programming languages, as the other.
posted by signal at 4:57 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 4:57 AM on March 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
Apparently there was/is a somewhat unique dialect of German (Texasdeutsch) spoken by a small number of people in Texas, the youngest of whom would be in their 70s, i.e., people stopped teaching their children it around the time of World War 2. Anyway, this dialect was sufficiently interesting linguistically that linguists were hurrying to study it whilst there were still speakers of it.
posted by acb at 5:01 AM on March 17, 2015
posted by acb at 5:01 AM on March 17, 2015
(There are still some living speakers of Texas German, though it hasn't been anyone's only or primary language for a while. But yeah, it took a big hit during each of the World Wars, to the point where it stopped being used outside the home even among people who spoke it.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:28 PM on March 21, 2015
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:28 PM on March 21, 2015
« Older The World's First Successful Penis Transplant | Our most personal device yet. Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
No, this isn't correct. The existance of a common language means that they only have to learn one language; it is differently inefficient than a different common language would be (unless it happens to be your own), but still much better than no common language at all.
posted by Mitrovarr at 4:07 PM on March 15, 2015 [7 favorites]