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It's not surprising that the article is in English even though it's an all-Chinese team, because it was published on an English journal. But I can't stop wonder

It's not surprising that the article is in English even though it's an all-Chinese team, because it was published on an English journal. But I can't stop wondering how many years are left before most scientific output is in Chinese. The dominance of English might be over soon.

abdullahkhalids 8y ago
It took centuries of British colonization to make British English the lingua franca of the world, and decades of American cultural and economic imperialism to switch the default to American English. It is unlikely that a complete switch to Chinese will happen on any shorter scale, if ever.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  Decades aren't really a long scale, though. 3 decades ago almost nobody in the Czech Republic spoke any English, today it's a common day-to-day language in Prague as many foreigners live there, even the homeless speak good English.
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PeterisP 8y ago
Scientific results are primary communication. It can happen in English because lots and lots of non-English scientists worldwide understand English, just as in earlier times it could happen in Latin, French or German. It's pointless to produce articles which don't reach the audience that matters, so your language is irrelevant compared to the language of the audience. I wouldn't expect much (not even most, but even a significant amount) of scientific output to happen in Chinese, even if produced by Chinese authors, until Chinese becomes a very popular second language worldwide which a critical mass of global researchers (e.g. most people who "matter" in a particular subfield) can use. Currently it still has a far way to go - while it's comparable in the total number of speakers (1.1 billion for both Chinese and English according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...), Chinese has just 200m secondary speakers compared to 740m of English, and that is the number that matters; not the total number of people but the "marketshare" of how many of worldwide 'educated class' know the language, and English has an extreme headstart in this regard. Any changes would require at least a full generation - new researchers growing up that had learned Chinese because it was widely taught for other reasons.

abdullahkhalids 8y ago

It took centuries of British colonization to make British English the lingua franca of the world, and decades of American cultural and economic imperialism to switch the default to American English. It is unlikely that a complete switch to Chinese will happen on any shorter scale, if ever.

TomMarius 8y ago
Decades aren't really a long scale, though. 3 decades ago almost nobody in the Czech Republic spoke any English, today it's a common day-to-day language in Prague as many foreigners live there, even the homeless speak good English.

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PeterisP 8y ago

Scientific results are primary communication. It can happen in English because lots and lots of non-English scientists worldwide understand English, just as in earlier times it could happen in Latin, French or German. It's pointless to produce articles which don't reach the audience that matters, so your language is irrelevant compared to the language of the audience. I wouldn't expect much (not even most, but even a significant amount) of scientific output to happen in Chinese, even if produced by Chinese authors, until Chinese becomes a very popular second language worldwide which a critical mass of global researchers (e.g. most people who "matter" in a particular subfield) can use. Currently it still has a far way to go - while it's comparable in the total number of speakers (1.1 billion for both Chinese and English according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...), Chinese has just 200m secondary speakers compared to 740m of English, and that is the number that matters; not the total number of people but the "marketshare" of how many of worldwide 'educated class' know the language, and English has an extreme headstart in this regard. Any changes would require at least a full generation - new researchers growing up that had learned Chinese because it was widely taught for other reasons.