4 ms·

English isn't just the language of IT, it's become the lingua franca of science and commerce. Very little research worth reading is published in a language othe

by beloch 13y ago

English isn't just the language of IT, it's become the lingua franca of science and commerce. Very little research worth reading is published in a language other than English these days. I wouldn't be surprised if there are obscure, third-rate English-language scientific journals in China that have never been seen, let alone had articles submitted to by native English speakers! Over the years, I've worked with a lot of people who are not native English speakers. The one thing that trips me up is when one of them is so utterly brilliant at speaking English that I completely forget they're not a native speaker and start unconsciously throwing in some of the slang and colorful idioms my redneck father has fed me over the years. I always feel bad when I do this because it must sound like I go from perfectly understandable English to complete and utter gibberish in nothing flat! Idioms and slang are really horrible things to inflict upon non-native speakers. I can't imagine what it must be like for a non-native English speaker trying to work with Cockneys or newfies!

mjn 13y ago
Mostly true, and good for me to the extent it's true (as a native English speaker), but it does depend on the field and country. A lot of robotics and EE research in Japan is published in Japanese-language journals, as one of the bigger remaining outposts of non-English technical literature. The journals are slowly moving slowly towards more English, at least to the extent of publishing English abstracts for the Japanese papers, and younger researchers will tend to publish more in English, but it's a pretty recent trend. There is a lot of media-art / media-philosophy / electronic lit stuff published in German as well. E.g. I would love an English translation of any of Claus Pias's books, or of this generative-art book: http://www.generative-gestaltung.de/about http://www.generative-gestaltung.de/about
- jbaiter 13y ago
  OT, but an English translation of that (excellent, btw) book was released last year by Princeton Architectural Press: https://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781616890773 https://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781...
willyt 13y ago
Cockney is relatively easy compared to some other local UK dialects/accents. My wife's family is from Stirlingshire in Scotland and they say stuff like: 'yer wain's greetin' -> 'the baby's crying'. 'I'm away tae get woor messages' -> 'I'm going to the shops for food' It took my a while before I could understand them :-)
- arethuza 13y ago
  Aye, it's a sair fecht! ;-)
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  In those examples, it's not just the accent or the words / language used, it's local expressions, sayings and the like. A perfectly simple and easily read sentence like "I need to see a man about a dog" can be pronounced in the most fluent and understandable accent (TV English), and still non-natives wouldn't realise it means you're going to the bathroom. In fact, going to the bathroom is another expression / figure of speech. You get the idea. Words, grammar and pronunciation are just part of the story.
- harrytuttle 13y ago
  It's never quite that simple: as a genuine cockney (born at Barts), I have a bastardised Northern and German accent. Innit.
- mdpye 13y ago
  Accent and dialect are distinct. Maybe it's because I was born in Scotland, spent my teenage years in the English midlands and north, now live in London and watch TV from the states, but I've never met an English speaker whose accent I had difficulty understanding. And that includes all the heavily accented (although generally second-gen) immigrants I've met. Dialect on the other hand means words I don't know the definition of, and sometimes there isn't enough context to intuit it.
  - willyt 13y ago
    Exactly. But it's obviously not just the accent thats at issue here. If you think about it, and try to do a good impersonation of someone talking in a different accent it has to include a bit of dialect and local grammatical idioms to make it convincing. I assumed that the original comment about 'foreign accents' also encompassed the grammatical tics that foreign speakers often have. Someone speaking grammatically correct english in a strong accent is easily understood, but it only takes a very little grammatical mistake to change to meaning of a sentence. For example, an Italian colleague who missed out a 'to' and told me 'just a minute, I'll come over your desk' caused some admittedly slightly childish giggling in the office...
gbog 13y ago
No research in other languages than English? You crazy? Most research on Chinese art, history, literature is in Chinese. Same for French. I'd agree that some topics that are more detached from a given culture, like mathematics, are mostly English zone, but this is not the biggest part.
btilly 13y ago
...the lingua franca... Here is a random irony that I like. People today use an Italian phrase describing French, and mean English by it.
- stan_rogers 13y ago
  Lingua franca (on the ground, as opposed to diplomatic French) wasn't exactly French, either; it was a sort of Occitan/Spanish/Italian hybrid that was something more than a mere pidgin (possible because of the common Romance roots of its speakers). The name is more of a "this isn't Italian; sounds like French to me" designation. (William Caxton remarked that London-area English was received similarly in Kent in the 15th century.)

by beloch 13y ago

mjn 13y ago

Mostly true, and good for me to the extent it's true (as a native English speaker), but it does depend on the field and country. A lot of robotics and EE research in Japan is published in Japanese-language journals, as one of the bigger remaining outposts of non-English technical literature. The journals are slowly moving slowly towards more English, at least to the extent of publishing English abstracts for the Japanese papers, and younger researchers will tend to publish more in English, but it's a pretty recent trend. There is a lot of media-art / media-philosophy / electronic lit stuff published in German as well. E.g. I would love an English translation of any of Claus Pias's books, or of this generative-art book: http://www.generative-gestaltung.de/about http://www.generative-gestaltung.de/about

jbaiter 13y ago
OT, but an English translation of that (excellent, btw) book was released last year by Princeton Architectural Press: https://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781616890773 https://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781...

willyt 13y ago

Cockney is relatively easy compared to some other local UK dialects/accents. My wife's family is from Stirlingshire in Scotland and they say stuff like: 'yer wain's greetin' -> 'the baby's crying'. 'I'm away tae get woor messages' -> 'I'm going to the shops for food' It took my a while before I could understand them :-)

arethuza 13y ago
Aye, it's a sair fecht! ;-)
Cthulhu_ 13y ago
In those examples, it's not just the accent or the words / language used, it's local expressions, sayings and the like. A perfectly simple and easily read sentence like "I need to see a man about a dog" can be pronounced in the most fluent and understandable accent (TV English), and still non-natives wouldn't realise it means you're going to the bathroom. In fact, going to the bathroom is another expression / figure of speech. You get the idea. Words, grammar and pronunciation are just part of the story.
harrytuttle 13y ago
It's never quite that simple: as a genuine cockney (born at Barts), I have a bastardised Northern and German accent. Innit.
mdpye 13y ago
Accent and dialect are distinct. Maybe it's because I was born in Scotland, spent my teenage years in the English midlands and north, now live in London and watch TV from the states, but I've never met an English speaker whose accent I had difficulty understanding. And that includes all the heavily accented (although generally second-gen) immigrants I've met. Dialect on the other hand means words I don't know the definition of, and sometimes there isn't enough context to intuit it.
- willyt 13y ago
  Exactly. But it's obviously not just the accent thats at issue here. If you think about it, and try to do a good impersonation of someone talking in a different accent it has to include a bit of dialect and local grammatical idioms to make it convincing. I assumed that the original comment about 'foreign accents' also encompassed the grammatical tics that foreign speakers often have. Someone speaking grammatically correct english in a strong accent is easily understood, but it only takes a very little grammatical mistake to change to meaning of a sentence. For example, an Italian colleague who missed out a 'to' and told me 'just a minute, I'll come over your desk' caused some admittedly slightly childish giggling in the office...

gbog 13y ago

No research in other languages than English? You crazy? Most research on Chinese art, history, literature is in Chinese. Same for French. I'd agree that some topics that are more detached from a given culture, like mathematics, are mostly English zone, but this is not the biggest part.

btilly 13y ago

...the lingua franca... Here is a random irony that I like. People today use an Italian phrase describing French, and mean English by it.

stan_rogers 13y ago
Lingua franca (on the ground, as opposed to diplomatic French) wasn't exactly French, either; it was a sort of Occitan/Spanish/Italian hybrid that was something more than a mere pidgin (possible because of the common Romance roots of its speakers). The name is more of a "this isn't Italian; sounds like French to me" designation. (William Caxton remarked that London-area English was received similarly in Kent in the 15th century.)