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Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

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Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#231

Post by danieltillett »

mablap wrote: post #215
danieltillett wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick any scientific paper at random. No other language other than English has the terms and concepts required to write the paper - you can’t translate most scientific papers into another language since the complete set of terms and concepts don’t exist in any other languages. It is not that you can’t write scientific papers in other languages (many are written in other languages), just that we have settled on English…

What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. Do you even speak another language than English? Millions of people each year have their graduate education on languages other than English and are doing fine. They do learn English for broad communication, but what you're implying is that they couldn't even think in their own language since it's inadequate. I'm sorry to say but you're full of it if you believe what you w…

I am implying or saying none of this. I think you need to read carefully what I have written, not what you have projected on to me.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#232

Post by technomancy »

ktRolster wrote: post #143
danieltillett wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That there is no knowledge that can't be communicated in English. Actually not all languages are equivalent because many concepts can only be expressed in English as all other languages lack the vocabulary to express many scientific and technical concepts. Right now English really is the only language that can be used to express a lot of concepts.

Alan Perlis said, "A programming language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing." Similarly, it might be said that a human language that doesn't affect your world-view is not worth learning. The language is the door to the culture.

Bingo. I've learned more about English itself the past couple years studying Thai than I have since I was a young child; particularly how daft our orthography is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography#Defective...

One of the strengths of English is that it adapts by assimilation from other language; if it were the only language around it would stagnate.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#233

Post by mablap »

danieltillett wrote: post #230
mablap wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read what you wrote - that is what upset me. You come up with ridiculous, blatantly false, unfounded claims and don't back them up. I understand it might be annoying to be called out like this, but letting this ignorance pass without calling it out is akin to agreeing with it. I still think you're wrong. But I'm not on a witch hunt, if this is what concerns you.

I can't imagine why you would get upset about something so abstract. Let's have a civilised discussion about if highly technical concepts can be translated into languages other than English, not make personal attacks.

I am upset in the intellectual sense, not the physical.

There is no discussion to be had. You are wrong. If you cannot accept the basic fact that any concept can be translated into any language (efficiency notwithstanding) then fine, just don't pretend you want to engage in "civilised discussion".

Confrontation is not a personal attack. The arguments you gave (and still support) are evidence of someone who is either trolling or has not seen the world. Honest question: do you speak/read multiple languages?

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#234

Post by danieltillett »

mablap wrote: post #233
danieltillett wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine why you would get upset about something so abstract. Let's have a civilised discussion about if highly technical concepts can be translated into languages other than English, not make personal attacks.

I am upset in the intellectual sense, not the physical. There is no discussion to be had. You are wrong. If you cannot accept the basic fact that any concept can be translated into any language (efficiency notwithstanding) then fine, just don't pretend you want to engage in "civilised discussion". Confrontation is not a personal attack. The arguments you gave (and still support) are evidence of someone who is either…

Yes I can read (and speak badly) a few languages (Spanish, French and a bit of Italian) and I have travelled widely - not that it is really relevant.

I think you can’t accept that there are many concepts that can’t be expressed in any language other than English. I am a scientist by background, trained in multiple fields for over 20 years, and yet I only have an understanding of a tiny fraction of all the scientific concepts out there (I can’t say how low, but well under 0.01%).

The vast majority of concepts (distinct ideas) that I personally know are scientific. With almost all the scientific concepts I know it is not possible to communicate to someone about the concept in any language other than English because the background concepts are missing from other languages. This is not because English is inherently superior to any other language, just a consequence of English being the common language of science.

You see this when you go to a scientific conference - people who speak a common language other than English will chit-chat to each other in their own language, but when you hear them talking to each other about science it either totally in English, or a hybrid where ever second word is English - there is often so much English in these conversations that I can follow along even when I have no understanding of the base language.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#235

Post by m00n »

danieltillett wrote: post #223
m00n wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To translate scientific literature is the easiest part of translation. In fact, a lot of papers don't even get translated because everyone can read them after learning 100-200 words from the respective language. I can tell you that most of my time goes by reading scientific papers in languages that are not my mother tongue. The question discussed in this thread is _not_: Would it be beneficial to have all scientific…

Do you really think you can understand the concepts in a scientific paper knowing just 200 words of the language they are written in?

In my field of expertise, which is mathematics, this is certainly possible. My French and Russian is bad, to say the least. I doubt I have a vocabulary of more than 200 words in each, but I have no problems reading, for example, EGA [1]. Also there are entire journals in the field publicising translations of articles, which seems to contradict your claim that bleeding-edge scientific concepts are non-translatable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89l%C3%A9ments_de_g%C3%A9o...

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#236

Post by m00n »

danieltillett wrote: post #221
derriz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that English only became a lingua franca in the 20th century? Before that, hardly anything of scientific significance was expressed or published in English? The seminal works in physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology were written in German, Latin, etc

Yes of course. But since 1945 the vast majority of papers have been written in English. I think people forget how much science has grown over the last 75 years to the point where everything written pre-1945 is a small minority of the scientific literature.

Do you think that the ideas of Leibniz and Cauchy, that is differential and integral calculus, of Heisenberg and Einstein, that is Quantum mechanics and Relativity, of Curie, Mendelejew, Hahn, Bosch, ... basically, of any non-english speaking scientist with breakthrough insights, are not understood by English speaking scientists, when translated?

What makes you believe people think about concepts "In English", when they are published in English? Certainly Feynman was thinking about QM in English, even though most of the concepts were developed in Norwegian and German.

Also, I'm still waiting for a single example of an english named scientific concept, that is not understandable to a German/French expert in the field. Maybe you have at least _one_ example handy, claiming that "most scientific concepts" are of this type.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#237

Post by danieltillett »

m00n wrote: post #236
danieltillett wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes of course. But since 1945 the vast majority of papers have been written in English. I think people forget how much science has grown over the last 75 years to the point where everything written pre-1945 is a small minority of the scientific literature.

Do you think that the ideas of Leibniz and Cauchy, that is differential and integral calculus, of Heisenberg and Einstein, that is Quantum mechanics and Relativity, of Curie, Mendelejew, Hahn, Bosch, ... basically, of any non-english speaking scientist with breakthrough insights, are not understood by English speaking scientists, when translated? What makes you believe people think about concepts "In English", when t…

None of the scientists you listed are alive let alone at the cutting edge of science and their work proceeds the move of science to English. Interestingly all their papers when they were published were not able to be translated in English without creating new terms which made it hard for English physicists who did not speak German.

Of course German or French scientists can understand modern scientific papers because they all speak English. I have met thousands of scientists who's first language is not English and not a single one can't read English.

As for an example I literally picked the first papers I found on NCBI. Written by a Chinese team in English - good luck translating this paper into any other language [1].

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27372578

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#238

Post by danieltillett »

m00n wrote: post #235
danieltillett wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think you can understand the concepts in a scientific paper knowing just 200 words of the language they are written in?

In my field of expertise, which is mathematics, this is certainly possible. My French and Russian is bad, to say the least. I doubt I have a vocabulary of more than 200 words in each, but I have no problems reading, for example, EGA [1]. Also there are entire journals in the field publicising translations of articles, which seems to contradict your claim that bleeding-edge scientific concepts are non-translatable. [1…

Mathamatics is not like other fields - it isn't even really a science.

The non-mathamtical language used in mathamatics papers is easily translated, but understanding the maths is impossible without the required background and it can't be translated into any natural human language. Maths uses a synthetic symbolic language which mathematicians around the world share allowing them to communicate - in the natural sciences we use English instead.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#239

Post by sametmax »

jackarg wrote: post #171
sametmax wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. Yes, cultural diversity is good. But we have plenty of ways to have that without needing 1000 languages : - art; - food; - social constructs; - city organisations; - and slang if you really want your tongue to be part of it. We don't need to spend time and energy to save old ways of communication. Let's us it to make communication better now. What's more, anything that live eventually dies, which is something we…

You would willingly give up the french language if asked to and replace it with english? As a french person too, this is inconceivable for me. I don't think cultural identity is really possible without languages. French culture would not be the same french culture if everyone spoke English.

It's not about giving up french, it's about letting it die if one day it's decaying.

Not saving != killing.

Re: Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)

#240

Post by sametmax »

jugbandjames wrote: post #173
sametmax wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. Yes, cultural diversity is good. But we have plenty of ways to have that without needing 1000 languages : - art; - food; - social constructs; - city organisations; - and slang if you really want your tongue to be part of it. We don't need to spend time and energy to save old ways of communication. Let's us it to make communication better now. What's more, anything that live eventually dies, which is something we…

It's not always that "natural" of a selection. Many native Americans were basically kidnapped and forced to learn English. Governments in the past have intentionally tried to eradicate languages with the mistaken belief that one language is superior and more communicative and another is barbaric or degenerative. This still happens in the form of dialect prejudice, which is institutionalized in the American public sch…

Being kidnapped and forced to do anything is the problem here. Being rejected for being different is too. The "learning english" part is really not a big issue compared to it. Actually I'm pretty sure people would accept much more easily somebody speaking a dialect next to them if they knew in the end, they have at least one language in common.
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