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The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

nature.com

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Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#31

Post by naniwaduni »

akavi wrote: post #19
tomohelix wrote: post #13

There must be a lingua franca and English is likely among the best choices, considering its widespread adoption and relatively low barrier of entry (try Japanese or Vietnamese and you will see what I meant). But it is true that there is cost to non-English speakers. 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…

Japanese the language qua language is relatively easy from a language agnostic perspective. Formality levels are tricky, but the phonology is fairly simple (very few "weird" sounds) and the grammar is on the regular side. The writing system on the other hand... IMO the worst used by any major language in the world. Graft a logographic system (already a bad choice to start) from an isolating language onto a highly syn…

> If the seemingly arbitrary and unique assignment of pronunciations to common combinations of Kanji frustrates you—[...]—and leave you wondering why anyone would do such a thing, concluding that Japanese has the worst writing system ever, rest assured that they don't have the worst ever. They just have the worst writing system since the Hittites.

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#32

Post by jimbob45 »

ghaff wrote: post #16
tombert wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Esperanto just creates the same language barrier for everyone. Yes, that's kind of what I was getting at; I think everyone should go through the same hurdles instead of creating a huge advantage for about ~400 million people while the remaining 7.6 billion people have to do extra work. If we chose a language that isn't really spoken natively, then in theory we could create a system that doesn't give an inherent adv…

No one cares about abstract let’s make everything equally hard fairness And, as you say, Esperanto is still Indo-European and probably Romance so why not just go back to using Latin or French.

English has some niceness to it that modern Latin derivatives lack. Specifically, the ability to verbificate anything, the lack of having to learn everything’s made-up gender, and the lack of a centralized authority which allows slang to propagate quickly and usefully.

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#33

Post by glimshe »

tombert wrote: post #11
dpc050505 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Esperanto just creates the same language barrier for everyone. English is an easy language to learn. I'm ESL and it's no big deal.

> Esperanto just creates the same language barrier for everyone. Yes, that's kind of what I was getting at; I think everyone should go through the same hurdles instead of creating a huge advantage for about ~400 million people while the remaining 7.6 billion people have to do extra work. If we chose a language that isn't really spoken natively, then in theory we could create a system that doesn't give an inherent adv…

English is hard to pronounce and speak correctly. But it's pretty easy to obtain basic proficiency in English - and given how widespread it is, no language beats it in value per time invested.

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#34

Post by lifthrasiir »

irrational wrote: post #6

>“Non-native English speakers constitute almost 95% of the world’s population,” Amano says. “If we don’t support those 95%, I’m sure we can’t solve many global challenges.” Is 95% an accurate number? What percentage are not native speakers, but have near native fluency? I've been to Iceland and Denmark and everyone I spoke to in those places could speak English with near native fluency. I remember meeting one guy in…

> Is 95% an accurate number? What percentage are not native speakers, but have near native fluency?

You are right to wonder about that, but even when we assume every ESL speaker to be fluent enough the proportion only drops to 80%.

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#35

Post by ghaff »

zztop44 wrote: post #30
pie420 wrote: post #17

Learning English is priority #1 for any human being right now. If you are able to communicate in english, so many opportunities and sources of information open up to you. It shocks me that some countries aren't making it mandatory, but that's due to nationalism and not wanting too much emigration/brain drain I suppose. Not being moderately fluent in english is inexcusable in the modrn world, in the same that not bein…

I don’t think this is as true as you make out. For the vast majority of people (who are born, live and die all in the same country/language community) should it really be their #1 priority to learn English? For example, a street food vendor in Chengdu, a phone salesman in Belo Horizonte, or a roofing contractor in Avignon. Or even a professor at a small university in Kagoshima. Learning English would probably open up…

It’s effectively a branch. It determines some things you can do and can’t so.

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#36

Post by resolutebat »

naniwaduni wrote: post #31
akavi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese the language qua language is relatively easy from a language agnostic perspective. Formality levels are tricky, but the phonology is fairly simple (very few "weird" sounds) and the grammar is on the regular side. The writing system on the other hand... IMO the worst used by any major language in the world. Graft a logographic system (already a bad choice to start) from an isolating language onto a highly syn…

> If the seemingly arbitrary and unique assignment of pronunciations to common combinations of Kanji frustrates you—[...]—and leave you wondering why anyone would do such a thing, concluding that Japanese has the worst writing system ever, rest assured that they don't have the worst ever. They just have the worst writing system since the Hittites.

Cuneiform signs can be employed in three functions: syllabograms, Akkadograms or Sumerograms. Syllabograms are characters that represent a syllable. Akkadograms and Sumerograms are ideograms originally from the earlier Akkadian or Sumerian orthography respectively, but not intended to be pronounced as in the original language; Sumerograms are mostly ideograms and determiners. ... Thus, the sign GI 𒄀 can be used (and transcribed) in three ways, as the Hittite syllable gi (also ge); in the Akkadian spelling QÈ-RU-UB of the preposition "near" as QÈ, and as the Sumerian ideogram GI for "tube" also in superscript, GI, when used as a determiner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_cuneiform

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#37

Post by wenc »

dpc050505 wrote: post #7
tombert wrote: post #3

I think it's extremely unfair how much of an advantage us native anglophones have in the scientific realm. Doing anything interesting enough to get published is hard enough as it is, and I have to assume that it's substantially harder for people who are also fighting a language barrier as well. A part of me wants something like Esperanto to take over this space.

Esperanto just creates the same language barrier for everyone. English is an easy language to learn. I'm ESL and it's no big deal.

I've heard it said that "English is an easy language to speak badly and still be understood". Most Europe, even the French, muddle through in a sort of ESL because it's the most common intermediate language.

If you're Dutch, you're not going to learn Italian just to holiday in Rome.

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#38

Post by jetzzz »

dpc050505 wrote: post #7
tombert wrote: post #3

I think it's extremely unfair how much of an advantage us native anglophones have in the scientific realm. Doing anything interesting enough to get published is hard enough as it is, and I have to assume that it's substantially harder for people who are also fighting a language barrier as well. A part of me wants something like Esperanto to take over this space.

Esperanto just creates the same language barrier for everyone. English is an easy language to learn. I'm ESL and it's no big deal.

> I'm ESL and it's no big deal.

Not everyone would be learning English as a second language. In many parts of the world you may need to know some regional language in addition to your native one, so English would be your third, not second language.

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#39

Post by leduyquang753 »

goodbyesf wrote: post #25
tomohelix wrote: post #13

There must be a lingua franca and English is likely among the best choices, considering its widespread adoption and relatively low barrier of entry (try Japanese or Vietnamese and you will see what I meant). But it is true that there is cost to non-English speakers. 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…

> 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' ( b…

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).

Re: The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers

#40

Post by dron57 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #32
ghaff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one cares about abstract let’s make everything equally hard fairness And, as you say, Esperanto is still Indo-European and probably Romance so why not just go back to using Latin or French.

English has some niceness to it that modern Latin derivatives lack. Specifically, the ability to verbificate anything, the lack of having to learn everything’s made-up gender, and the lack of a centralized authority which allows slang to propagate quickly and usefully.

Noun gender is really a non issue. It's something native anglophones complain about when learning other languages. ESL people are more likely to complain about just how many verb tenses English has.
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