4 ms·

That simply won't happen. 1. US isn't the only country which publishes in English. The entire Western hemisphere does. Not to mention India, already the most p

That simply won't happen. 1. US isn't the only country which publishes in English. The entire Western hemisphere does. Not to mention India, already the most populous English-speaking country in the world, and has barely scratched the surface when it comes to English literacy. 2. Science needs interaction to thrive. Publishing textbooks in Mandarin is a very different ballgame than cutting edge research papers. I don't see that changing and China has invested massively in English education already. Tldr: English will remain the defacto global Lingua Franca of science.

mrb 8y ago
«English will remain the defacto global Lingua Franca of science.» Just like Latin remained the defacto lingua franca of science? :-)
- jabl 8y ago
  We should all switch to Esperanto! :)
  - BillChapman 8y ago
    Kial ne uzi Esperanton? Why not use Esperanto?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yesenadam 8y ago
  de facto lingua franca Latin was for hundreds of years, if not longer, and it's still doing OK by the look of it.
- rsj_hn 8y ago
  Latin was the Lingua Franca of science until the 17th Century, or 1300 years after the collapse of the Roman Empire (Sorry Byzantium), so if that's not evidence for the stickiness of languages, I'm not sure what else you'd need. Wait for 1000 years after the North America, India, Western European civilizations collapse, and we'll see what international language scientists are using -- there's a good chance it will still be English.
  - GlobalFrog 8y ago
    One could argue though that we live in highly accelerated times compared to when latin was used. It took quite a long time for the roman language domination to be built : between 509 BC to 480 AD (roman republic and western roman empire), whereas the english dominance came in roughly 70 to 140 years only (depending on the importance you give to the british empire, my opinion being that it is mostly since WW2). So, to sum up, it took around nearly 1000 years for latin to be carved into enough many countries/kingdoms/other entities so that it was used for the next 1300 years in science/church or as the base for the new languages that appeared (and moreover, latin was for quite a long time an official language for the administration). Today, I don't think it will happen, but I wouldn't bet against the possibility it could take only 50 years or less for english to be equaled in global use by another language, because english does not have the same foothold that latin had.
    - rsj_hn 8y ago
      So, I'm not talking about total use. English isn't the most popular first language even today. I'm talking about which language is the most popular second language used in international dialogue, especially research. And the relevant speed there is not population growth but how fast the interconnections and traditions of science change. On the one hand, you have a lot of new scientists coming online, but on the other hand, the bigger the network of scientists, the harder it is to change -- e.g. the lockin effects are bigger. Rather, I think today a lingua franca is much more sticky than it was in the past, when you were talking about scientists from just a handful of nations communicating with each other. It was mostly just Europe and North America. Now, it's global. The best chance of another language displacing english isn't today, it was in the past. Now, even if China, India, and Japan all ban English and adopt, say, Japanese as their Lingua France, the rest of the world will continue with English and they'll be pulled back into the orbit. Also, there is much more trade today than in the past, so you have a network that is bigger and more interconnected, that has settled on a lingua franca, and that system has much more inertia.
      - stickfigure 8y ago
- neuromantik8086 8y ago
  Latin arguably still ia the lingua franca of science when you look at specialized vocabulary (species taxonomies are the most obvious manifestation of this). Otherwise we'd be calling the outside of the brain "brain bark" instead of "cerebral cortex".
codeproject 8y ago
"Science needs interaction to thrive", doesn't it?. I would expend it a bit. Always everything needs interaction. from a country down to a person. A person who can communicate well thrive in an environment will be successful in that environment.
gutnor 8y ago
Also 3. China does not want Mandarin to become a Lingua Franca in anything. Let's remember that China is a strongly nationalistic, protectionist, autocratic and most importantly successful country. Keeping Chinese for the Chinese give them enormous control leverage economically for their local market but also in entertainment, culture and more generally information. I can see China simply promoting English in every field where it gives them a competitive advantage outside their border, like here in science. Also there are technical and cultural difficulties for Mandarin to impose itself. Technically, Kanjis are a huge barrier to entry for learning, it takes years of personal investment to acquire basic literacy. You can't mix Chinese into English or English into Chinese very easily either. Culturally, probably by pragmatism because of the technical difficulties I mentioned, Chinese immigrants have not pushed for their language to the same level as South American for example. So sure it is possible that this will changes, but that will take many decades.
- dash2 8y ago
  > Let's remember that China is a strongly nationalistic, protectionist, autocratic and most importantly successful country. Keeping Chinese for the Chinese give them enormous control leverage economically for their local market but also in entertainment, culture and more generally information. I think that bird has flown... there are already many many ethnic Chinese outside the PRC, across Asia, in Taiwan, and in America. Wikipedia says 50 million.
- JackFr 8y ago
  One of the additional appeals of English, is that no one cares if you do it poorly. I have seen foreign born CTO's of billion dollar American companies who have difficulty with subject verb agreement -- and no one cares. In general, we're not uptight about loan words and shifting usage, accents are so common, as long as you're intelligible it's not a big deal.

mrb 8y ago

«English will remain the defacto global Lingua Franca of science.» Just like Latin remained the defacto lingua franca of science? :-)

jabl 8y ago
We should all switch to Esperanto! :)
- BillChapman 8y ago
  Kial ne uzi Esperanton? Why not use Esperanto?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yesenadam 8y ago
de facto lingua franca Latin was for hundreds of years, if not longer, and it's still doing OK by the look of it.
rsj_hn 8y ago
Latin was the Lingua Franca of science until the 17th Century, or 1300 years after the collapse of the Roman Empire (Sorry Byzantium), so if that's not evidence for the stickiness of languages, I'm not sure what else you'd need. Wait for 1000 years after the North America, India, Western European civilizations collapse, and we'll see what international language scientists are using -- there's a good chance it will still be English.
- GlobalFrog 8y ago
  One could argue though that we live in highly accelerated times compared to when latin was used. It took quite a long time for the roman language domination to be built : between 509 BC to 480 AD (roman republic and western roman empire), whereas the english dominance came in roughly 70 to 140 years only (depending on the importance you give to the british empire, my opinion being that it is mostly since WW2). So, to sum up, it took around nearly 1000 years for latin to be carved into enough many countries/kingdoms/other entities so that it was used for the next 1300 years in science/church or as the base for the new languages that appeared (and moreover, latin was for quite a long time an official language for the administration). Today, I don't think it will happen, but I wouldn't bet against the possibility it could take only 50 years or less for english to be equaled in global use by another language, because english does not have the same foothold that latin had.
  - rsj_hn 8y ago
    So, I'm not talking about total use. English isn't the most popular first language even today. I'm talking about which language is the most popular second language used in international dialogue, especially research. And the relevant speed there is not population growth but how fast the interconnections and traditions of science change. On the one hand, you have a lot of new scientists coming online, but on the other hand, the bigger the network of scientists, the harder it is to change -- e.g. the lockin effects are bigger. Rather, I think today a lingua franca is much more sticky than it was in the past, when you were talking about scientists from just a handful of nations communicating with each other. It was mostly just Europe and North America. Now, it's global. The best chance of another language displacing english isn't today, it was in the past. Now, even if China, India, and Japan all ban English and adopt, say, Japanese as their Lingua France, the rest of the world will continue with English and they'll be pulled back into the orbit. Also, there is much more trade today than in the past, so you have a network that is bigger and more interconnected, that has settled on a lingua franca, and that system has much more inertia.
    - stickfigure 8y ago
neuromantik8086 8y ago
Latin arguably still ia the lingua franca of science when you look at specialized vocabulary (species taxonomies are the most obvious manifestation of this). Otherwise we'd be calling the outside of the brain "brain bark" instead of "cerebral cortex".

codeproject 8y ago

"Science needs interaction to thrive", doesn't it?. I would expend it a bit. Always everything needs interaction. from a country down to a person. A person who can communicate well thrive in an environment will be successful in that environment.

gutnor 8y ago

Also 3. China does not want Mandarin to become a Lingua Franca in anything. Let's remember that China is a strongly nationalistic, protectionist, autocratic and most importantly successful country. Keeping Chinese for the Chinese give them enormous control leverage economically for their local market but also in entertainment, culture and more generally information. I can see China simply promoting English in every field where it gives them a competitive advantage outside their border, like here in science. Also there are technical and cultural difficulties for Mandarin to impose itself. Technically, Kanjis are a huge barrier to entry for learning, it takes years of personal investment to acquire basic literacy. You can't mix Chinese into English or English into Chinese very easily either. Culturally, probably by pragmatism because of the technical difficulties I mentioned, Chinese immigrants have not pushed for their language to the same level as South American for example. So sure it is possible that this will changes, but that will take many decades.

dash2 8y ago
> Let's remember that China is a strongly nationalistic, protectionist, autocratic and most importantly successful country. Keeping Chinese for the Chinese give them enormous control leverage economically for their local market but also in entertainment, culture and more generally information. I think that bird has flown... there are already many many ethnic Chinese outside the PRC, across Asia, in Taiwan, and in America. Wikipedia says 50 million.
JackFr 8y ago
One of the additional appeals of English, is that no one cares if you do it poorly. I have seen foreign born CTO's of billion dollar American companies who have difficulty with subject verb agreement -- and no one cares. In general, we're not uptight about loan words and shifting usage, accents are so common, as long as you're intelligible it's not a big deal.