Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014) • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by danieltillett » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 5:53 AM UTC

mablap wrote: post #243

danieltillett wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you can’t accept that there are many concepts that can’t be expressed in any language other than English. I cannot accept such an absurdity, because it is false. I am also a scientist trained in theoretical physics and I have received my education in French, a colleague had his in Portuguese, another in Mandarin, yet another in French/Arabic and our professors and PIs had theirs in German, English, French, Sp…

I think you are finally understanding what I am saying. Of course it is possible to translate all scientific concepts into any human language, just that in practice it is not done since the return is minimal and the cost high. Rather than waste an enormous amount of resources on translating every paper, conference proceeding, report and patent into the thousands of different human languages we have settled on just using English.

Any concept (and all the required prerequisite concepts) that have not been translated to the new language can’t be communicated in that language. Nothing more.

The only interesting aspect of all this is that it makes a large chunk of human thought only able to be communicated effectively in one language. It would probably would have been ideal to have settled on a synthetic language designed specifically for science communication (mathematics is part of the way there), but history didn’t turn out that way.

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

#252

Post by hvidgaard » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 6:57 AM UTC

iaskwhy wrote: post #187

hvidgaard wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the entire world spoke English, Spanish, or Chinese, we still wouldn't be able to understand each other. I live in Denmark, less than 6 million people, and I can pick two guys, put them in a room, and they would not be able to understand one another. They live less than 300 miles from eachother.

You might be biased without knowing it because Danish is one of those languages with lots of dialects in such a small region. I only know this because my girlfriend used to live in Copenhagen and couldn't understand most people outside of the capital. Maybe most countries don't share so many dialects, I'm sure mine (Portugal) doesn't, it's pretty easy to understand most people here with the exception of the Azores Is…

I know Sweden and Norway are the same, but your point probably stands, as they are very similar to Danish.

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

#253

Post by drdeca » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 8:15 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #250

drdeca wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it; can't you just describe the technical things in the other languages? Brainf * may be turing complete, but I would certainly prefer to use a more ordinary language.

Yes you can, but at the cutting edge of science this is a big job because of the amount of assumed knowledge and concepts you need to explain the new concept. To translate the new concept you need translate all supporting concepts as well to enable the person to understand the new concept. In practice this requires translating a significant amount of all scientific knowledge from English into the target language (let…

I'm not saying that a language can't be more convenient for some things than some other language is for those things. See Brainf* vs python.

It seems strange to me to put English on all that much of a pedestal though. I mean, aren't many of the cutting-edge words recently neologisms anyway? (possibly named after someone)

Like, "anti-deSitter space", deSitter is iirc a guy's name, and anti could be translated or left alone if it is recognized in the language in question, and the word space could be translated, so I don't see what the problem would be there.

I mean I don't really know any cutting edge science because, uh, I'm not a scientist. But, from wikipedia, I'm trying to see if I can remember anything that seems like it would be particularly hard to translate and nothing comes to mind quickly? I suppose I could look at wikipedia articles on new topics in other languages and see what ones are missing or have many english words in them?

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

#254

Post by mablap » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 6:00 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #251

mablap wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can’t accept that there are many concepts that can’t be expressed in any language other than English. I cannot accept such an absurdity, because it is false. I am also a scientist trained in theoretical physics and I have received my education in French, a colleague had his in Portuguese, another in Mandarin, yet another in French/Arabic and our professors and PIs had theirs in German, English, French, Sp…

I think you are finally understanding what I am saying. Of course it is possible to translate all scientific concepts into any human language, just that in practice it is not done since the return is minimal and the cost high. Rather than waste an enormous amount of resources on translating every paper, conference proceeding, report and patent into the thousands of different human languages we have settled on just us…

Gah.... instead of shaking my head in disbelief/disagreement/disappointment/stupefaction once again, I will simply wish you the best of luck in your endeavours and bail out from this impass.

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

#255

Post by danieltillett » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 12:16 AM UTC

drdeca wrote: post #253

danieltillett wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you can, but at the cutting edge of science this is a big job because of the amount of assumed knowledge and concepts you need to explain the new concept. To translate the new concept you need translate all supporting concepts as well to enable the person to understand the new concept. In practice this requires translating a significant amount of all scientific knowledge from English into the target language (let…

I'm not saying that a language can't be more convenient for some things than some other language is for those things. See Brainf * vs python. It seems strange to me to put English on all that much of a pedestal though. I mean, aren't many of the cutting-edge words recently neologisms anyway? (possibly named after someone) Like, "anti-deSitter space", deSitter is iirc a guy's name, and anti could be translated or left…

I am not putting English on a pedestal, just trying to explain why so much of human thought is only able to be communicated in English.

Any scientific concept can be translated into any language in principle, it is just that in practice nobody does - well at least until the concepts filter down to the undergraduate level.

You will really find it impossible to be a professional scientist if you can’t read and write English these days (speaking is less important). In the past if you could not read and write Latin you couldn’t discuss the latest scientific concepts, now that role is played by English. A very large percentage of all concepts are now scientific concepts and hence accessible only to English speakers (well readers).