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I'm not a native English speaker. Growing up, I soon noticed that almost all of everything technical is in English. And that's a good thing. All you have to do
by FredPret 3y ago
I'm not a native English speaker. Growing up, I soon noticed that almost all of everything technical is in English.
And that's a good thing. All you have to do is learn English (easier said than done, but completely realistic and feasible for most), and you can talk to almost every nerd in the world about anything.
- nemetroid 3y agoHow does this relate to the article?
- FredPret 3y agoThe article says "almost all of this technical thing is in English and that's bad". I'm saying "no it's good"
- jamil7 3y agoThe headline says that, the article is different. It's saying most research studies done on the mind are done on English-speaking participants.
- FredPret 3y agoServes me right for skimming the headlines!
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoThat's the argument, but I'm not sure it makes sense. Unless you're studying the difference in people's minds given language differences, it makes more sense to study a common language, otherwise language differences will color the results, making comparisons difficult or impossible.
- nemetroid 3y agoYes, it's easier to study just one language. But it limits your ability to make universal, language-independent, conclusions about the mind.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoIt's a counterpoint to the notion that having a single common language for something is a negative.
- aeurielesn 3y agoUnfortunately, that is not what the article is about.
- bitwize 3y agoEnglish is a Schelling point for scientific and technical information. It's kind of fitting, since the language evolved over centuries as a way for Anglo-Saxons, Norse, and French to communicate as these various groups came to and conquered the British Isles. English is a trade pidgin... with an army and navy. In continental Europe, they often use English as a handshaking language. I once saw a German talkshow host interview a Norwegian singer, and they spoke in English until he could ascertain that she knew enough German to conduct the interview in German.
- ben_w 3y agoThat's just because we stole all the good words while busy taking all the other stuff and getting into fights with our neighbours. Guru, avatar, loot, orange, safari, schadenfreude, karaoke, cookie, entrepreneur… One day the lingua franca will be somewhere else. - Tabling that (in the American sense rather than the British), every technical field uses language slightly differently; as a software dev I found it very weird when first witnessing scientists pluralise their source code as "codes".
- coeneedell 3y agoThat’s an interesting thing you point out. I’m a computational social scientist and I’ve really only seen this with colleagues whose native language doesn’t have pluralization morphology to begin with (East Asians usually). Since code is an irregular pluralization in English, it trips them up. Perhaps it’s a combination of: Learning to program informally (as most scientists do) Being a non-native English speaker My native English speaking colleagues or those from Europe, India, Africa, South America, pluralize code as code. I didn’t like, do a study on it or anything this is just a pattern I’ve noticed, so your mileage may vary.
- FredPret 3y agoEnglish has an unreal ability to absorb words like karaoke and guru and still sound natural. My native language (and almost every other language) just sounds really awkward when doing the same. English, being so flexible and easily adaptable, is set to keep winning for a long time.