The Hidden Bias of Sciences Universal Language
Rebellion 2019/04/04 08:58
Newtons Principia Mathematica was written in Latin; Einsteins first influential papers were written in German; Marie Curies work was published in French. Yet today, most scientific research around the world is published in a single language, English.
Since the middle of the last century, things have shifted in the global scientific community. English is now so prevalent that in some non-English speaking countries, like Germany, France, and Spain, English-language academic papers outnumber publications in the countrys own language several times over. In the Netherlands, one of the more extreme examples, this ratio is an astonishing 40 to 1.
A 2012 study from the scientific-research publication Research Trends examined articles collected by SCOPUS, the worlds largest database for peer-reviewed journals. To qualify for inclusion in SCOPUS, a journal published in a language other than English must at the very least include English abstracts; of the more than 21,000 articles from 239 countries currently in the database, the study found that 80 percent were written entirely in English. Zeroing in on eight countries that produce a high number of scientific journals, the study also found that the ratio of English to non-English articles in the past few years had increased or remained stable in all but one.
This gulf between English and the other languages means that non-English articles, when they get written at all, may reach a more limited audience. On SCImago Journal Ranka system that ranks scientific journals by prestige, based on the citations their articles receive elsewhereall of the top 50 journals are published in English and originate from either the U.S. or the U.K.
In short, scientists who want to produce influential, globally recognized work most likely need to publish in Englishwhich means theyll also likely have to attend English-language conferences, read English-language papers, and have English-language discussions. In a 2005 case study of Korean scientists living in the U.K., the researcher Kumju Hwang, then at the University of Leeds, wrote: The reason that [non-native English-speaking scientists] have to use English, at a cost of extra time and effort, is closely related to their continued efforts to be recognized as having internationally compatible quality and to gain the highest possible reputation.
It wasnt always this way. As the science historian Michael Gorin explained in Aeon earlier this year, from the 15th through the 17th century, scientists typically conducted their work in two languages: their native tongue when discussing their work in conversation, and Latin in their written work or when corresponding with scientists outside their home country.
Since Latin was no specific nations native tongue, and scholars all across European and Arabic societies could make equal use of it, no one owned the language. For these reasons, Latin became a fitting vehicle for claims about universal nature, Gordin wrote. But everyone in this conversation was polyglot, choosing the language to suit the audience. When writing to international chemists, Swedes used Latin; when conversing with mining engineers, they opted for Swedish.
As the scientific revolution progressed through 17th and 18th centuries, Gordin continued, Latin began to fall out of favor as the scientific language of choice:
Galileo Galilei published his discovery of the moons of Jupiter in the Latin Sidereus Nuncius of 1610, but his later major works were in Italian. As he aimed for a more local audience for patronage and support, he switched languages. Newtons Principia (1687) appeared in Latin, but his Opticks of 1704 was English (Latin translation 1706).
But as this shift made it more difficult for scientists to understand work done outside of their home countries, the scientific community began to slowly consolidate its languages again. By the early 19th century, just threeFrench, English, and Germanaccounted for the bulk of scientists communication and published research; by the second half of the 20th century, only English remained dominant as the U.S. strengthened its place in the world, and its influence in the global scientific community has continued to increase ever since.