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> There must be a lingua franca Not true. The period of greatest scientific advancement in human history ( mid-19th to the mid-20th century ) had no lingua fra

> There must be a lingua franca Not true. The period of greatest scientific advancement in human history ( mid-19th to the mid-20th century ) had no lingua franca. Actually, the end of french as a 'lingua franca' in europe in the first half of 1800s can partly be credited with the burgeoning of science ( and other academic fields ) in britain, germany, russia, etc. Just like the ending of latin as 'lingua franca' ( beginning of the 'vulgar' period ) led to the burgeoning of religion, philosophy, literature, etc throughout europe. > Maybe we can lower the standard a little bit? I don't mean broken Engrish but if the sentences make sense and the grammar is correct, maybe that is good enough? Or maybe people should speak their own language and 'do science' in their own language. What's more preferable? Having one billion chinese learn english to study algebra with an english language textbook or translated that one algebra textbook into chinese and have one billion chinese learn algebra in chinese? The dull and boring mono-linguistic and mono-culture world has led to stagnation. The world would be infinitely better off when that changes. When we have actual diversity, not the superficial diversity where we look different but all think and talk the same. Look at the tech world today. Look at just europe alone. How great would it be if europe had a german, spanish, russian, french 'google/apple/microsoft/etc'? Now broaden that view to the arab, persian, chinese, indian, african, etc regions. So much diversity, knowledge, creativity, etc is lost because one group of people want to dominate the world. It's tragic.

leduyquang753 3y ago
That said there gotta be some balance though. It is much more effort to translate something into every language that interested people might use, that is, if people who can translate are willing to spend the effort at all. Learning a common language has opened up an enormous realm of knowledge that many other languages can't come close (see for example the English Wikipedia vs. other languages' Wikipedia, both in article count and in the length of each article).
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  I’d imagine for most languages people are going to be using for scientific dialog already have pretty robust translation tools. You can probably put a Chinese math paper through google translate and get decent output. This sort of thing could be built into google scholar, maybe even finer tuned for the exact idioms and jargon used by each field in that language.
- ghusto 3y ago
  This is true, and I can tell you that we're actually missing out on a lot of interesting Chinese research in mental disorders and therapy.
light_hue_1 3y ago
> Not true. The period of greatest scientific advancement in human history ( mid-19th to the mid-20th century ) had no lingua franca. Actually, the end of french as a 'lingua franca' in europe in the first half of 1800s can partly be credited with the burgeoning of science ( and other academic fields ) in britain, germany, russia, etc. Just like the ending of latin as 'lingua franca' (beginning of the 'vulgar' period ) led to the burgeoning of religion, philosophy, literature, etc throughout europe. Huh?!? That's totally false. The lingua franca changed from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. Depending on the field of science it was either French or German and transitioned to English. For physics it was German moving into English over that 100 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications... In math French was a bit more of a player. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications... Hilbert for example published in German until the ascendancy of English. Turing's famous work is in German. No one serious was publishing in Russian, Italian, etc. There was a clear lingua franca.
- goodbyesf 3y ago
  > Huh?!? That's totally false. Lets see who is lying and who is telling the truth. > Depending on the field of science it was either French or German and transitioned to English. Charles Darwin did his work in french? Or was it german? What language did faraday, maxwell, dalton, etc use? French or german? What language did lord kelvin to give us the temperature scale? Can you point to a single scientific paper that an english or american scientist wrote in german or french? > For physics it was German moving into English over that 100 years. Yes I know. I'm not denying that english is lingua franca. > In math French was a bit more of a player. Bit of a more player? That's proving my point. French was not lingua franca. Nobody would say 'english is bit of a more player' in math, science, business, politics, etc. Lingua franca is obvious. You don't have to miscontrue it with such weasely language. > Turing's famous work is in German. I don't know german and I've read turing's original works on computation, AI, morphogenesis, etc. Have you? They were most definitely not written in german. What's with people who know absolutely nothing writing with such authority? > There was a clear lingua franca. So tell me what 'lingua franca' turing was publishing his work in. It wasn't german like you claimed so german wasn't lingua franca. It surely as hell wasn't french. The only lingua franca in europe before english was latin. Neither french nor german ever was 'lingua franca' as you've clearly proved with turing. At best you could argue that english, french and german were major players in science, math, etc. But certainly there was no lingua franca until english took over post-ww2.

leduyquang753 3y ago

That said there gotta be some balance though. It is much more effort to translate something into every language that interested people might use, that is, if people who can translate are willing to spend the effort at all. Learning a common language has opened up an enormous realm of knowledge that many other languages can't come close (see for example the English Wikipedia vs. other languages' Wikipedia, both in article count and in the length of each article).

kjkjadksj 3y ago
I’d imagine for most languages people are going to be using for scientific dialog already have pretty robust translation tools. You can probably put a Chinese math paper through google translate and get decent output. This sort of thing could be built into google scholar, maybe even finer tuned for the exact idioms and jargon used by each field in that language.
ghusto 3y ago
This is true, and I can tell you that we're actually missing out on a lot of interesting Chinese research in mental disorders and therapy.

light_hue_1 3y ago

> Not true. The period of greatest scientific advancement in human history ( mid-19th to the mid-20th century ) had no lingua franca. Actually, the end of french as a 'lingua franca' in europe in the first half of 1800s can partly be credited with the burgeoning of science ( and other academic fields ) in britain, germany, russia, etc. Just like the ending of latin as 'lingua franca' (beginning of the 'vulgar' period ) led to the burgeoning of religion, philosophy, literature, etc throughout europe. Huh?!? That's totally false. The lingua franca changed from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. Depending on the field of science it was either French or German and transitioned to English. For physics it was German moving into English over that 100 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications... In math French was a bit more of a player. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications... Hilbert for example published in German until the ascendancy of English. Turing's famous work is in German. No one serious was publishing in Russian, Italian, etc. There was a clear lingua franca.

goodbyesf 3y ago
> Huh?!? That's totally false. Lets see who is lying and who is telling the truth. > Depending on the field of science it was either French or German and transitioned to English. Charles Darwin did his work in french? Or was it german? What language did faraday, maxwell, dalton, etc use? French or german? What language did lord kelvin to give us the temperature scale? Can you point to a single scientific paper that an english or american scientist wrote in german or french? > For physics it was German moving into English over that 100 years. Yes I know. I'm not denying that english is lingua franca. > In math French was a bit more of a player. Bit of a more player? That's proving my point. French was not lingua franca. Nobody would say 'english is bit of a more player' in math, science, business, politics, etc. Lingua franca is obvious. You don't have to miscontrue it with such weasely language. > Turing's famous work is in German. I don't know german and I've read turing's original works on computation, AI, morphogenesis, etc. Have you? They were most definitely not written in german. What's with people who know absolutely nothing writing with such authority? > There was a clear lingua franca. So tell me what 'lingua franca' turing was publishing his work in. It wasn't german like you claimed so german wasn't lingua franca. It surely as hell wasn't french. The only lingua franca in europe before english was latin. Neither french nor german ever was 'lingua franca' as you've clearly proved with turing. At best you could argue that english, french and german were major players in science, math, etc. But certainly there was no lingua franca until english took over post-ww2.