This whole question is going to be moot in just a few short years: language translators are getting better so quickly that it will be possible with a few clicks to translate just about any piece of writing into just about any language. Yes these translators will have trouble with discipline specific jargon, but that is also a matter of time. In the meantime, it will only require a bit more editing. However, my prediction is that within the next ten years, this type of concern will no longer exist.

The same is true with journal articles - yes English is the language of discourse now, but it will not be long before whole PDFs can be accurately translated as easily as OCR and other similar functions.

This will clearly be great for all of us. Though I am an English speaking native, I want my colleagues and students to be able to express their ideas in their most articulate version, and language is a silly barrier to throw up. I look forward to this wall being torn down.

Freek, If you want to attract a broad audience for your research then, at present days, ENGLISH is must. But, personally I do agree with you. Another alternative could be to keep two different versions of thesis, one in native language and other in English.

In case of science, strictly not.. because English is standard mode for explaining and understanding adopted by most of the countries and in the field of science one can not progress without sharing ideas, thus to share common platform, discussing ideas and maintaining communication between scientific society english should only be used any kind of scientific writing..

Good question, yet in some cases writing in English poses a legal problem. In Poland, up to recently, writing a PhD in a language other than Polish was only possible in case of having a secondary supervisor from an university abroad. Otherwise, a PhD in English was treated as a violation of the Law on Purity of Polish Language, and there were situations when the matters ended in a courtroom... Luckily, the new legal regulations allow for writing in a language other than Polish.

The language in which a thesis was written is not a metric of its quality or of its success.

Of course, English has been adopted international as "communication language" so you may EXPECT (nothing more than that and not sure of it) that writing in english you may achieve a broader audience.

But if this were the case that english is a must, then no journals in other languages would exist... and there are quite a number of journals not published in english...

maybe just in few years international scientific language is chinese or hindi...

Finally most of the references found in the literature are to peer reviewed papers and thesis do have much less penetration, so is not that important.

As a last comment, a counter-question:

Provided that your data, research, methods, and all the content is excellent. Would you prefer writing a thesis in poor english or in your own language? I guess, you would express yourself more securely and better in your own language....

English is standard mode for explaining and understanding adopted by most of the countries and in the field of science one can not progress without sharing ideas.

other than that thesis may be written in Native language of a particular country.....for common people....

Yes!

in Iran all of thesis write with Persian Language.

This whole question is going to be moot in just a few short years: language translators are getting better so quickly that it will be possible with a few clicks to translate just about any piece of writing into just about any language. Yes these translators will have trouble with discipline specific jargon, but that is also a matter of time. In the meantime, it will only require a bit more editing. However, my prediction is that within the next ten years, this type of concern will no longer exist.

The same is true with journal articles - yes English is the language of discourse now, but it will not be long before whole PDFs can be accurately translated as easily as OCR and other similar functions.

This will clearly be great for all of us. Though I am an English speaking native, I want my colleagues and students to be able to express their ideas in their most articulate version, and language is a silly barrier to throw up. I look forward to this wall being torn down.

If you don't have publications from your PhD, then a PhD in English won't help. If you have publications, then who cares about the thesis?

That said, it is a recommended exercise to write the thesis in English. Moreover, writing in another language is a waste of time: not only you end up looking native terms that you will never use in your later life, but you also have to write most of the things twice -- once for the thesis, once for the publications.

Best solution is a thesis that consists of an introduction and the published papers. Everything else is a waste of time.

I think that writing your thesis in English it will help you to practice and to let other people that in other language maybe wouldn't read you.

I would like to see scientists publish in their own language but also with an English translation. As a native English speaker I have read some papers that have been badly translated. Fortunately, this doesn't often detract from gaining the 'sense' of what was meant but sometimes poor translation leads to ambiguity.

German about 1 hundred years ago, Russian and English 50 years ago, English now. Who is the next? China? ) Not bad ;) We should understand each other. Language is not important.

It depends on who you want to read it. If you want a global audience you need to publish in English, but if your thesis is only relevant to people in your own country, then write it in your local language.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Why you write the thesis?

2. Who are the potential readers?

3. What are the main materials from?

When asking myself, i regard it's better to write in my own language.

@Weiqiang Ding

Why should any of your potential readers read your thesis and not your publications? In all the 10+ years after my PhD I only read PhD theses when I had to grade them. Unless your publications are not in English, of course.

Ok, why do we write a thesis? I think a thesis is more than just a collection of papers. Besides, it is done in a particular context, It is a humble piece of universal culture (english) but it also represents part of the scientific production of a particular country (native language). A possible solution could be to write it in native language and at the same time a brief version with an introduction (in english) and the papers.

Hi dear freerk

In my country, Iran, all of thesis were written in persian language but in Ph.D ,writting in english is voluntary. Usually, researcher and scientists were used thesis in their countries, therefore this law applies to all country with languages other than english.

At the end, it is important to find accurately informations as soon as possible inany languages.

Cheers

hello!

I think that writing your thesis English, then write spanish. because these languges are usually languges for all the world.

Best Regurds

maybe Chaines!

@Carlos Naón

"Ok, why do we write a thesis? I think a thesis is more than just a collection of papers."

Yeah, I totally agree that an average PhD thesis contains loads of useless and unnecessary stuff.

Seriously, though; PhD thesis is (a) a kind of driving license allowing you to take up certain jobs and (b) is a remainder from ye olden days, when publishing a paper was for a PhD student generally not a realistic option. Your career will depend on the papers, patents, teaching experience, technical experience, books you have written, programs you have published, tools you have made, people you know but in general, not on your PhD thesis.

In France, at least until now, thesis language is French (with exception for foreign people that can write it in English). However you can make a "paper-based" thesis that incorporate research papers written in English. Thesis are then indexed with both french and english abstracts and keywords, which make it easy to find in bilbliographic researches.

If I think ability to write in english is an important skill to learn for non-english native PhD students, but it's also important to keep the diversity of point of views that language can provide. Moreover, if english is the scientific language now, no reason to think it will last for long like somebody already said, it was first latin, then French and German, now English, next should be Chinese, Indian, Spanish or Portuguese for what we know. I think that the correst question for your purposes should more be how could we better promote diffusion of PhD thesis (online depositories etc,...) and copyright matters that could be associated.

At least your abstract and keywords should be provided in both your language and English and if people are interested in your work and not able to understand your thesis, they might most certainly contact you for details/explanations. I remember that for instance some researcher interested in a chinese-written paper just asked for a translation, so it should not be a problem for you to write your thesis in your very own language.

And of course, I think it should also be a matter of scientific field, guidelines would not be the same for a math, human sciences or life sciences thesis.

Based on the original question, for better or worse. English has become

a universal language of communication over the internet It is also used

globally to communicate with aircraft and control towers.

If we like it or not in this period of time English is the language of communication in technology fields.

If Thesis are in another language they are not widely read, referenced and consequently recognized.

If you want to reach to maximum number of technocrats and spread the knowledge then English is probably the only language. In India it is must to write thesis in English.

In Indonesia most of thesis and dissertation written in Bahasa Indonesia, but the paper for publication written in English. So I think in this condition no problem for my country that has many languages.

Hi.

I feel language should not be a barrier in science, except when it comes to publications where it enters a common pool of knowledge... In the case of theses and manuscripts on the other hand that remain with you and the university, I feel there should be no serious concern regarding writing these in the native language of the author or the native language of the region where the university is based... At the same time, this should not hamper the writing skills of the author to a level where the subject of publishing a scientific paper is affected... I am not sure how far you agree with me on these points... :-)

If there is need to publish either the thesis or the manuscript at a later stage, the document can then be easily translated into English or the required publishing language and then submitted for publication.

My best wishes,

Dominique.

@Dominique

"If there is need to publish either the thesis or the manuscript at a later stage, the document can then be easily translated into English"

Surely, you must be joking? How many theses are completed each year? What is their volume? Who would pay for the specialist translators, when the students are gone? Who would vouch for the correctness of translation? What colossal waste of time and money!

I give my students always the choice between the language of the country and English, but I do recommend English for the sake of an exercise. However, I also do recommend spending the time and effort on writing a manuscript of a publication, in English, rather than on working on the thesis. Authors of peer-reviewed publications get good marks anyway, so they need not to worry that the quality of their thesis will suffer.

Ceterum censeo, thesis is not important. Peer-reviewed publications are important.

@January

Quite true from that point of view... But when I was speaking of translating the thesis or manuscript, I meant that the author himself/herself if he/she wishes to do so at some point in time can work at the translation. But then this also varies from person to person so we will let that point go for now... :-)

In short I hear your view on the publications and I support it... A good thesis can be built on a strong publication!

I am a native spanish speaker. I wrote my thesis in spanish but the core of the information was published in english in an american journal. Today in most of the Universities it is mandatory to write only the title and abstract in english in the thesis manuscript, but the rest is written in spanish. Most of the relevant data is published sooner or later in english. In fact, making public those theses in the internet in languages other than english would provide access to scientific information to people that really neeed it.

@Rohan Chaubal

English as a universal language is hardly a XIXth century notion -- at that time French was considered universal, and in science, German was pretty popular in many areas and Latin was still around. English can be considered the universal langue *of science* from the mid-XXth century onward.

Also, I don't view it as an imperialist notion. We have adopted the language, changed it, modified it in ways that the natives often find horrible (especially those with the "received pronunciation"). We have taken it away from them, sort of.

Anyways -- who cares whether it will be Chinese or Hindi in future. For science, use the language that currently dominates *in science* to broaden your audience.

Actually, in France your Thesis has to be written in French or you need to ask an ageement to wright it in english. (For exemple if one of your jury member does not speak French)

As far as I am concern (I am French...) I find it faster and easier to wright your thesis directly in english as the paper you refer to in your manuscript and your own paper have been written in english. But on the other hand, scientific productions are not done only for scientist (At least I deeply believe it), but also for non scientist public. So wright you thesis in your native language is a good way to make it possible for every body to easily acces (and sometime understand) your work.

For my part, I chose a middle way for my manuscrpipt with the introduction, discussion and conclusion parts written in French, but the different chapter of my thesis were articulated around my own article and so written in english with just a short resume of them in French. So Both French and English speakers can acces my work.

I think except for the programs taught in English, each bachelor/ master thesis is written in the official language of its country . Of course they can be translated online but it you want to make it publicly readable therefore international available, you should also write it in English to avoid inexact translations.

Any articles that are not written in English would need to be translated into English in order for me to understand them.

To my knowledge no language is capable of having words where science can be expressed satisfactorily. All language thesis/ papers use only verb-- other words are in English

science is far advancing and no language can substitute the words those are coming every day in science

better concentrate on science and not on the language

Better strict to science and do not bother about language

In response to Erwan Poivet: Indeed science is for non-scientists as well, This generally requires a different write up specifically targeted to the general public, called outreach or science journalism. I strongly support thatand I have no question about that. My butterfly guide book is also available in Rutooro (a Ugandan language). Greetings from Rennes, my new (French) work place! Cordialement, Freerk

I think language bar is out of consideration in this age of technology. Non-english speaking countries where they have their own native languages for communication they will not think of writing the theses in english. And today we have translators on google where you can easily get all the info in any language you desire. So i do not think it a big issue.

I miss the student perspective a bit. Aren't you shortchanging students by not stimulating them to write their thesis in English? Google translate still often results in uninteligble texts (hopefully indeed in 10 years this will be much better), yet carefully choosing once words is a basic skill in Science. If you aim to train students for the international science labour market, they might benefit from a thesis in English. For example, you can send your MSc thesis to posible future PHD advisors abroad, and demonstrate this skill as well as show your work. It is also easier to check a thesis in English for plagiarism which may be lost in translation.

If you’re not native English speaker it can be a little tricky, not because you don’t know how to translate the language, but because there are many expression that can’t be translated, like the movie “it may get lost in translation”, and the result cannot be as satisfactory, due you’re writing down something else to "make it fit".

@Rohan Who didn't have a student like that -- raise your hand! I just sent out today a grading for a MSc student who had, at the beginning, real problems communicating in English. The MSc was a wonderful opportunity for her to learn and train her English, and the work, despite some linguistic problems, was graded well above the average.

Hey, I had once an undergrad student who has never before used a computer to type a text (and I was teaching bioinformatics!). What do you think about that?

English is not a language :-). It is a tool which allows you to communicate *in science* and take advantage of all the goodies, papers, manuals, books, articles, discussions that are out there. Just like a computer, like maths, like the ability to read and write. Except for certain odd cases, you need to learn how to use this tool; even though it will be probably replaced one day by something better or more efficient, just like the slide rule was first replaced by a calculator, then by a computer.