The Language of Science

Why is the language of science English? I thought the answer to that question was the same as to why the language of the world is English: because the British ruled most of the planet.

But that answer’s not true for science, argues Michael Gordin, a historian of science, in his book, Scientific Babel. Gordin points out how recently English took over the scientific world:
“If you look around the world in 1900, and someone told you, 'Guess what the universal language of science will be in the year 2000', you would first of all laugh at them. It was obvious that no one language would be the language of science, but a mixture of French, German and English would be the right answer.”
That actually makes sense. Sure, the British ruled the world, but the scientists were all in Europe, an area not exactly under British control!

So why then has English become the dominant language of science since 1900? The short answer: the two World Wars.

Now for the longer version. After the first World War, the victors boycotted scientists and blocked from conferences scientists from Germany and Austria. At that stage, many international organizations to govern science were formed, and they began to function in English and French. And in the US, German was criminalized in 23 states around the first World War as anti-German hysteria hit its peak.

With these 2 events, the number of (future) scientists who bothered to learn German dropped through the floor. Why learn a language that nobody you knew of was writing in? And so when the next generation of scientists grew up, German was a language they did not know. And so that was the end of German.

So we were left with French and English. After the second World War, as the US came to dominate science, the language of science became the only language the Americans knew: English.

T0 see how dominant English is today, says Gordin, consider this: in earlier times the Germans would translate English terms, like “Sauerstoff” for “oxygen”. Not anymore. Terms like “online”, “transistor” and “microchip” are carried as-is into German.

At least the Germans seem to know when to concede defeat. Not so with the French who will even translate words like “Internet”! Not that those words ever catch on in France, but hey, do you think the French bodies care?!

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarJune 28, 2017 at 11:36 AM

    Yes, one may discuss the 'language of science' or the 'language of commerce, or the language of administration' in a at-this-juncture way. The dominance any language is temporal and evanescent. Why else Newton of England wrote physics in Latin and Fermat of France too wrote mathematics in Latin! I find English OK for today, but after 500 years who knows which language will rule?

    If pragmatism rules too today English is an OK choice; for that, is there need to involve any feeling of "superiority"? We need to just get on with it, period. All the value slants given to specific languages are nothing more than churning up of the mind.

    Bengalis want to believe that Bangla is the "bestest" language of the world. Tamils live in "well" glorifying Tamil. Pious Hindus whip up the glory of Sanskrit assigning it God's own language status, no less than Arabs would like to believe that Allah thinks and favors Arabic! There are many more...

    Humankind's inherent nature is divisiveness, because we are wired to be selfish. Language is one of the instruments for selfish assertion.

    Toning down individual ego, and curbing assertion through egoistic might is deemed a necessity for the welfare of the overall society. Many laws are there to take of individual interest for which curbing others' unreasonable bulldozing is necessary. If these laws work then it would be a nation like USA/Northern Europe/Japan etc. If these laws are not realizable then it would be a lowly African country like Somalia. India is somewhere in between these ends. And we have an immense language problem and the situation can turn volatile too. What we will be tomorrow is in our hands.

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