The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by brettp » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

lifthrasiir wrote: post #34

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%.

I wonder where that statistic came from too. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num... the number of L2 speakers of English is ~1b or 12.5% of the world population (~8b).

But one thing that's missed is the advantage ESL speakers have: they by definition speak at least one other language. English speakers either don't have to or find it too hard to find someone to practise on even if they want to learn.

The fact that English is the lingua franca of science has another advantage even to ESL speakers: they only have to learn English to communicate with just about any other scientist in the world. Imagine having to pick between learning English, French, German, Japanese, Latin, depending on who you wanted your audience to be?

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

#42

Post by light_hue_1 » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 5:53 AM UTC

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…

> 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' (beginning of the 'vulgar' period ) led to the burgeoning of religion, philosophy, literature, etc throughout europe.

Huh?!? That's totally false.

The lingua franca changed from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. Depending on the field of science it was either French or German and transitioned to English.

For physics it was German moving into English over that 100 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications...

In math French was a bit more of a player. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications... Hilbert for example published in German until the ascendancy of English. Turing's famous work is in German.

No one serious was publishing in Russian, Italian, etc. There was a clear lingua franca.

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

#43

Post by Qem » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 10:17 AM UTC

dron57 wrote: post #40

jimbob45 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> ESL people are more likely to complain about just how many verb tenses English has.

Also the completely irregular spelling. You need to learn every word twice, first how to write, then how to speak. You can't just infer the sounds from the written word. Languages like Esperanto or German are better in this regard, you learn how to write a word and the odds are you'll know how it sounds as well.

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

#44

Post by kjkjadksj » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

leduyquang753 wrote: post #39

goodbyesf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 art…

I’d imagine for most languages people are going to be using for scientific dialog already have pretty robust translation tools. You can probably put a Chinese math paper through google translate and get decent output. This sort of thing could be built into google scholar, maybe even finer tuned for the exact idioms and jargon used by each field in that language.

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

#45

Post by ghusto » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 7:39 PM UTC

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…

> Maybe we can lower the standard a little bit?

Lower them more you mean?

As a native English speaker having learnt a foreign language, I can tell you that we're pretty goddamn lax in comparison. The English have long since made peace with the fact that their language has been usurped. They're okay with it, and make concessions for foreign language speakers; as long as the meaning is understood, nobody bothers correcting you.

Now try speaking French in France, or German in Germany. I don't know about Japanese in Japan, but I imagine it's the same or worse (from what I've heard second hand).

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

#46

Post by ghusto » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

leduyquang753 wrote: post #39

goodbyesf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 art…

This is true, and I can tell you that we're actually missing out on a lot of interesting Chinese research in mental disorders and therapy.

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

#47

Post by goodbyesf » Mon, Jul 24, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #42

goodbyesf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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' (beginning of the 'vulgar' period…

> Huh?!? That's totally false.

Lets see who is lying and who is telling the truth.

> Depending on the field of science it was either French or German and transitioned to English.

Charles Darwin did his work in french? Or was it german? What language did faraday, maxwell, dalton, etc use? French or german? What language did lord kelvin to give us the temperature scale? Can you point to a single scientific paper that an english or american scientist wrote in german or french?

> For physics it was German moving into English over that 100 years.

Yes I know. I'm not denying that english is lingua franca.

> In math French was a bit more of a player.

Bit of a more player? That's proving my point. French was not lingua franca. Nobody would say 'english is bit of a more player' in math, science, business, politics, etc. Lingua franca is obvious. You don't have to miscontrue it with such weasely language.

> Turing's famous work is in German.

I don't know german and I've read turing's original works on computation, AI, morphogenesis, etc. Have you? They were most definitely not written in german. What's with people who know absolutely nothing writing with such authority?

> There was a clear lingua franca.

So tell me what 'lingua franca' turing was publishing his work in. It wasn't german like you claimed so german wasn't lingua franca. It surely as hell wasn't french.

The only lingua franca in europe before english was latin. Neither french nor german ever was 'lingua franca' as you've clearly proved with turing. At best you could argue that english, french and german were major players in science, math, etc. But certainly there was no lingua franca until english took over post-ww2.

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

#48

Post by bitcuration » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 1:11 AM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #23

I have so much respect for students, researchers, and professors whose native language is not English. Not only have they reached a level of English proficiency that allows them to converse and share viewpoints with their colleagues, but also they can understand and express themselves using academic English styles specific to their fields.

The point is such respect is no longer necessary or required. It'll make science evolve faster, which is the whole idea.

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

#49

Post by bitcuration » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 1:23 AM UTC

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…

Norse people are pretty amazing when it comes to English speaking, next comes German and Dutch. It seems EU people are generally potent in multilingual. Granted English may be like a dialect to them.

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

#50

Post by bitcuration » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

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…

The same can be said about a cell phone, a car or electric. It's just a matter of time before the globalization and modern way of life hit everybody. But it's always subject to individual who's decided to go offgrid, one can always say No to English and happily ever after. It's a choice with hefty consequences, that's all one needs to know.