Any language is always a jail that prevents from communicating with those people using another one. English is a very very wide jail, and consequently you hardly can see its walls.

The advantages of speaking a widely used language, like English, are obvious. This is why occidental world progress has been developed together with some language widely used in all countries. First was Greek and Latin, in middle age Arabic and Latin, finally English. In my opinion, the most rational method would be the use of an artificial language, similar to Esperanto, created by a convention of scientific world, and being simple, syntax-free and regular, that is to say, without any exception, and consequently easy to learn.

Unfortunately, nationalistic feeling could prevent from accepting any universal language. Nevertheless, from a pure rational view-point an artificial language invented under logical rules will be more efficient than natural languages which are the result of random evolution through history.

In my paper

http://www.ijopcm.org/Vol/11/IJOPCM(vol.4.2.2.J.11).pdf

I have algebraically proved the advantages of syntax-free languages as intermediate among natural ones.

Languages play a vital role in presenting and communicating science. For the purpose of communicating our research findings to the research community, it must be presented in a well communicable language accepted world wide. Of course, scientific writing is an art and researcher should know it.

As per international requirement of informations or research, all the publications are written in English only. Because the benefit of English is that a single word can describe one sentence and can shorten the paragraph of a paper. But in the point of view for the none native English speaking researchers, it is very important to learn English and writing, which can be increased by reading papers and identifying words which are appropriate and important for sentence. I know it is time consumable but this can be done during reading article, reviews and comments just during searching references. But still I am agree with Dr. Raghava that now days researchers spent more time in writing apart from reading and doing research.

Writing an article is always a tough test for non-native english speakers, at least referring to most of my colleagues and friends. It's very difficult to translate correclty the idea you have formulated in your mother tongue. I agree with Gajendra that it's very time-consuming, and, very often, you are not totally sure that your translation is right and has the very same meaning as your original message. It's frustrating not being able to add as subtle touches as in our mother tongue. It's a real disadvantage compared to a native english speaker, because it requires more time to write an article, and a proofreading precisely by a native english speaker. Hopefully, it's more a technical than an artistical exercise, since you are not supposed to write a masterpiece of literature. Thus, automatisms acquired by training, make this exercise easier and more pleasant. Maybe one day a universal translator will allow every scientist to write in his native language.

to communicate between each other we have to have a common language. now a day it is English. in a very early history Latin is a master . in another era french and now English. of course it is a big barrier for scientist to gain more and a real obstacle to share their brain too.

i don't know what about scientific translation it took a lot of time and money and not always be as good as expected. but it is a way. Other way it to gain the key of scientific writing in English.

I think it should be from early carrier. one of the learning objective.

what do you think??

Any language is always a jail that prevents from communicating with those people using another one. English is a very very wide jail, and consequently you hardly can see its walls.

The advantages of speaking a widely used language, like English, are obvious. This is why occidental world progress has been developed together with some language widely used in all countries. First was Greek and Latin, in middle age Arabic and Latin, finally English. In my opinion, the most rational method would be the use of an artificial language, similar to Esperanto, created by a convention of scientific world, and being simple, syntax-free and regular, that is to say, without any exception, and consequently easy to learn.

Unfortunately, nationalistic feeling could prevent from accepting any universal language. Nevertheless, from a pure rational view-point an artificial language invented under logical rules will be more efficient than natural languages which are the result of random evolution through history.

In my paper

http://www.ijopcm.org/Vol/11/IJOPCM(vol.4.2.2.J.11).pdf

I have algebraically proved the advantages of syntax-free languages as intermediate among natural ones.

Dear colleagues, I am not against using English as international language. Its not difficult to learn English problem is standards of writing. Most of journals need high quality of English, most of researchers got comment that manuscript should be checked by person whose native language is English. Problem is from where you will bring the person for checking manuscript. Writing manuscript is not a problem in informal way any reader can understand content but problem is high standard maintained by good journals.

Dear Gajendra Raghava

Neither I am against English. Nevertheless, if I say that I prefer a bank note of 100$, I do not mean that I am against those bills of 50$ or less.

Mainly, the advantages of using a language A instead another B, depend on their structures. An artificial language can be built in a syntax-free way and without any ambiguity among a lot of other advantages that natural languages do not possess.

The subject is not a trivial one. Scientific progress depends on it. I cannot imagine how maths, chemistry or music could be advanced without the formal languages used in each subject. Progress depend on language structure. For instance, consider this sentence in "English": "John has framesized his face".

Of course you cannot understand it, because I have invented the verb "framesize", which could mean to emphasize his contour or something like. In other words, it must be understood that I cannot invent new words in English if I want to be understood. However, in mathematical language I can invent the word "x- log(y)+3.0000120000120000002" and it is unambiguous and understandable by any mathematician.

The more free extensions a language admits, the less vocabulary is required. No natural language is syntax-free, lacking of ambiguities and freely extensible. An artificial one can be built satisfying these properties.

Dear Prof.Juan-Esteban

I fully agree with your idea of an artificial universal language. The question is why till now no such language is in use? I fully agree that "nationalistic feelings" are a major barrier but are their also some other vaild reasons?

Dear Issam

There is one Universal language very easy to learn: Esperanto. Esperanto take good constructions from 12 natural languages. However, my proposal is more ambitious.

As far as I know, there are several millons of people knowing Esperanto. But a language only can be widely learned if it is offered in schools. In any case, is a matter of money. No editor will take the risk of publishing literature in a language that few people can understand. It is a question of marketing.

In any case, advantages depend on the performed logical structure. On the one hand, if you build an algorithm to translate from a language A into another one B, in general, both have different syntax. Thus, if the algorithm translates from A into the Universal language L, and then from L into B, it does not matter what the syntaxes of A and B can be; because L is syntax-free. On the other hand, a freely extensible language is more powerfull than any other with constrained extensions. For instance, you know that from the adjective "general" you can extend English by adding words like generally, generalize. Can you use this kind of extension freely, that is, with no restriction? For instance, consider the word cheese. Can you build the words cheesely and cheeselize? If English were a freely extensible language this kind of extensions would be always possible.

Nowadays, a team of voluntaries aporting their ideas through Internet could build a universal language. In any case, I think that it is worthy opening a thread in this site, to contribute with original ideas about those properties that a universal language must satisfy. Indeed, this must be a colaborative task, and RG could be a good arena to work in.

Dear Prof. Juan-Esteban

Thank you. I agree too that RG is a good starting point.

Dear Dr. Tarancon, what about the feelings/meanings/cultures of the notion evolved naturally in natural languages. How are they translated into a universal language? L. Wittengestein in tractatus logico phyl, tried to address an universal language under logical rules. Then, he made a U-turn back to natural language since we have only this. The meaning of a word is hidden in its sentence. Therefore each sentence / feelings should be translated into a universal one. This seems a time wasting job and almost impossible. Instead, english language should accept cheesely and cheeselize-type structures inside for better understanding.

Dear Yucesan,

Clearly, L. Wittengestein failed. Unfortunately not everyone is able to succeed. But when someone fails, this fact only shows that he is unable, by no means this is a proof of the task impossibility.

If you have read my posts in this thread, you can see that I have proved what I have said i with the powerfulness of algebra in

http://www.ijopcm.org/Vol/11/IJOPCM(vol.4.2.2.J.11).pdf

If you can prove that the results published and accepted in this paper are wrong, I would appreciate your contribution. In other words, my claim is not a matter of faith, but algebraic proof. By no means it is a matter of prejudices or illumination. Science is a more serious subject.

Dear Mats Envall

For those who negate that universal languages can exist.

Computers work with a universal language called machine code. Every computer process is written in this language. A compiler is an application translating from any programming language into machine code. In a higher level, there is also universal languages called bytecode. Java compiler translates programs into bytecode.

This is why an application compiled by java can be understood by any operating system, say Windows, Linux, Mac or freeBDS.

Scientific progress would not be the same without a universal language to denote numbers. if you write 23 this word can be understood universally. Numerating systems are universal and freely extensible. You can write a number choosing its figures at random and the resulting expression can be understood and denotes always some number.

For those who negate that syntax free languages can exist.

Recall that syntax free language means that the word order does not matter. Natural languages are syntactic. For instance, in English the phrases "write fast code" and "write code fast" have different meanings. Nevertheless, you can convert English in a syntax-free language extending it by using suffixes. For instance, if every word is suffixed with a number denoting the order, then the word order does not matter. Thus, "write1 code2 fast3" can be written in any order "fast3 write1 code2", "code2 fast3 code1" etc and every one can understand it. Of course this is a very simple example, and perhaps it seems ridiculous. A good example can be built using declensions.

In fact some languages like russian or latin use declension to this end; therefore they are less syntactic-dependent than those which do not use any declension. Creating wider and richer declensions the syntax problem can be solved. Indeed, if for syntax free you understand something different, then perhaps it is not possible.

The idea of uttermost perfection and the Russell paradox does not fit into my claims. I am thinking in a finite scope, and Russell paradox deals with the whole universe. If you restrict your thought to numbers and sums, then you are dealing whit a syntax-free language, because the order does not matter in number sums. If starting from a small scope you extend it, under some rules which make extension unique up to isomorphisms, then extension are ambiguity-free.

...../....

to be continued

../...

Of course, if your intent to get the widest possible extension, then you are in the king of Russell paradox. Maths is a live example of this kind of unambiguous and universal extension, from a few set of axioms until the more complex algebraic and topological structures. Fortunately, by virtue of Russell paradox we never can get the limit with the bad consequence of becoming unemployed. The perfection degree I am talking about is optimal, which is similar to the maximal concept. Maximals can be surpassed. What cannot be surpassed is maximum. I hope that if you can understand the Russell paradox you can also see the difference between maximal and maximum. Maximals are only the best among those that are comparable with them. You cannot know whether or not an object is maximal without knowing what is the used comparing-binary-relation. This a very great sin from an algebraic view-point. There are a lot of people in hell as consequence of this sin.

By contrast, maximum is a universal concept. For instance, according to relativity theory, light velocity is maximal among all numbers denoting velocities. But it is not the maximum of all numbers. In your post, I can see that you claim the language possibilities are limited. Great!!!! Zorn's lemma implies the maximal existence. I am less ambitious, I only intend to get optimal language which a weaker concept.

The most important language problem is the property of being freely extensible. To be freely extensible universal extensions are required, Universal extension is a construction of categorical algebra that requires a deeper explanation. Thus, I am going to open a new thread entitled "Why universal languages matter? in which I shall expose the problem more explicitly.

Dear Mats Envall,

Musical notation is a universal language that has converged towards a freely extensible one. Nowadays, any musician can create any melody without any restriction in order to write note sequences. The result is always understandable by executers and conductors.

Of course, it is limited to sounds. Numerical systems are also universal and ambiguity-free, but it is also limit to denote numbers. Step-by-step adding new limited universal languages you can win the the battle of universality.

It seems that you have forgotten that this thread is entitled "what is the role of language in science", and I am talking about scientific languages disregarding poetry and other subjects. Maths have found its universal language being ambiguity-free. If other sciences are equipped with universal languages like maths the progress will be increased. Chemistry has its own universal notation being ambiguity-free. Music has its own notation being universal and ambiguity free. Each of this languages are facts, by no means are fiction.

You have confused logical systems and notation ones. The concept of consistence is applied to logical systems. Languages or notations are conventions. Are simple extensible maps from notations into meanings. The ambiguity depends only on whether or not extensions are unique up to isomorphisms. In categorical algebra there are a lot of examples of such a kind of extensions.

How can you apply the concept of consistence to a notation? Can you say that denoting the number three as 3 is more consistent that III? Arabic numeration system is easier to handle than the roman one, but the consistence concept does not fit into this game.

If you can see that the structure of musical notation is the free-monoid one, therefore its extensions are unambiguous, then you can also understand what I have said.

Dear Prof., I've looked and tried to read your paper for better understanding.. Without your implications as stated here, it might be very hard to absorb it for me. However, something pokes me to say universal language is impossible but we may approximate it. I partly agree with you "Creating wider and richer declensions" the syntax problem can be solved. However, this code system should be at "sentence" level having a copula. not individual word level. Each sentence/suggestion should indicate a state of a matter, having a code. write fast code and write code fast could be solved if you say fast-ly. This is also another simple method.

In turkish, meanings are generally conserved if you change the orders, not like many other languages. Additionally, turkish has a wider declensions, no articles used, no subject used (or preferably used). Verb and subject are not need to be separeted. However, declensions create many problems for understanding (misunderstindin etc. )the meanings when talking. Turkish also have logical problems, such you can use a negation ("not") with negative word. It doesnt not mean positive as seen in math. For example...You dont never say me hello... means dont say hello. Declation is seen here in verb too, say(negate) never/sometimes/rarely/none hello to me... Learning a universal language might be interesting. Roman letter (I, V, X) compairing to Arabic numeral is so ambiguous and very hard to make calculations. But our case, not exactly fit to arabic numbers or else. Numbers do not have meaning/cultural notions/feelings/etc. so we can manipulate as we wish...Idioms are not easly be fitted to code system unless you code the meaning as it is.

Dear Buhara Yucesan,

I agree with you in most you have said. The problem is that I am a mathematician and for me the term "universal" means that it is generated by an extension that is unique up to isomorphisms. By no means, I have used the term universal as the uttermost perfect language we could never imagine.

This is an example of ambiguity. When I use the term "universal" every reader understands different thing. In colloquial or natural languages it does not matter; however in scientific scope if these kind of key-words were marked by means of suffixes or prefixes to concretize them, every language extension becomes less ambiguous.

On the other hand, the optimization problem is always possible. It is why programming languages like machine code are ambiguity-free, because they are created from scratch, without inheriting any arbitrary structure from previous languages created by human evolution at random, that is, without any elaborated logical scheme.

Another example is alphabet. Chinese writing system is about 4500 symbols large. It is a universal system like traffic signs. But a child can get basic degree of reading when being about 15 years old; while with an alphabet of 24 symbols like latin, my son was able to read anything when he was 5 years old.

Nevertheless, when the first computer was invented, the alphabet was optimized to the minimal size, that is, the binary one. Do you think that it was a good idea using chinese symbol system in computer memories? can you imagine how to complex sums and products could be?

Chinese writing system is very beautiful and must be used and conserved. Nevertheless, why do no invent an optimal language for every science, like music o math have their own ones? Why do not extend the actual mathematical language in order to increase its capabilities?

Dear Mats Envall,

Of course I can say if black or white is included in gray or something like. This is a very old solved problem by L. Zadeh.

I try to explain it to you, because categorical algebra has solved this question about the year 1970.

Consider an endofunctor sending each set X into the Cartesian product X⨉[0,1]; where [0,1] is the unit interval working as monoid of truth-values. With this endofunctor you can built a monad, the associated Kleisli category of which is nothing but a category of sets with fuzzy subsets. In this category I can say that the gray color belongs to the set of white colors with a truth value 0.5 or something like depending on the intensity. You can enrich English language by suffixing the verb to belong with real numbers. For instance gray belongs0.8 to the set of white colors; then the unambiguity of English has been increased.

Of course, you need to accept the Zadeh fuzzy logic. In multivalued logic there is no contradictions. When a predicate P implies ¬P assigning the truth value 0.5 to both P and ¬P everything is O.K.

Gödel theorems are proved inside the scope of dichotomic logic. Nowadays, we are using several new logical systems like linear one. In any case, dichotomic logic is a particular case of fuzzy one; therefore the scope of fuzzy logic is wider.

Consider the following quotation of the great mathematician F. Ramsey

and then you can see that not everybody has a religious faith in Russell's paradox.

"Suppose a contradiction were to be found in the axioms of set theory.

Do you seriously believe that a bridge would fall down?

Frank Ramsey (1903 - 1930)"

In fact, Russell's paradox has been solved by a language trick, namely, terming "class" the set of all sets, but in spite of the used word, the concept is the same, "the set of all sets."

Dear Mats Envall,

It is the same case. Fuzzy logic is wider than fuzzy sets.

But your error arise from the fact that you are confusing logic and notation system. In mathematical logics a sequence of words is called "phrase". A phrase having a meaning is called "sentence". A sentence having a truth-value is called "statement". Languages deal with sentences disregarding their assigned truth-values.

For instance, If I write the word sequence "S = a triangle with five angles" this is a sentence, because it possesses a meaning. But it is a false statement. If you know that the meaning of S is false, is because you can get at its meaning, therefore from the language view-point it is a correct sentence. If S were not a sentence, you cannot get at its meaning and without any meaning you cannot know whether it is false or true. If you are working inside the language scope, you must work disregarding whether or not the handled sentences are true of false. Truth values are matter of logical systems, by no means are a question of having or no a meaning.

Seriously do you think that a language must be rejected if some contradictory statement is possible to be denoted by means of its sentences? If so, you cannot speak any language. Even in logical mathematical language I can write this statement (p⋀¬p) which is a contradiction; therefore according to your criterion logical notation system must be rejected.

Languages like notations are simply conventions. If I decide my son to be called John, no Gödel's Theory can prevent me.

If you ask me whether gray is black or white, I can answer what I like. For instance "gray is black", "gray is white". No problem. You can understand both phrases even both being absurd. Nevertheless, if you assign the truth value 0.5 to any of them, there is nothing wrong. Fuzzy logic admits this truth value. In fact what your are asking is whether I can assign a truth value to the sentence "gray is black"; but this is a logical problem, no a linguistic one.

Even following Gödel's theory, I can claim that the sentence "gray is black" is undecidable and then according to Gödel's theorem my thought system is consistent and no bridge will fall down. In any case, your argumentation can be answered in two latin words: "NON SEQUITUR". I have exposed the opportunity of building optimal (maximal) languages, and you have interpret that I was speaking about the maximum language structure which cannot be improved. Your argumentation is far from my purpose, and I have said this fact before. Thus, the only deserved answer is "non sequitur".

Nevertheless, it is amusing dialoging with you. Thanks a lot and best regards.

I regret, but the answer is "NON SEQUITUR". I have said before that syntax-free means that the word order does not matter, and I have also proved how this is possible. In fact it is very simple. But if you use the expression syntax-free in different meaning, your argumentation can be rejected in two adequate words: NON SEQUITUR.

I am talking about something different.

You can see how I can write a syntax free sentence:

S = "The area of the circle is 4"

You can write these words in any order, and they can be interpreted without any ambiguity. This is because only ordered as above has a meaning. Only circle has the attribute area, and only 4 is a possible value of them. You can ask any student to arrange the words "area", "4", "the", "circle", "of", "is", and "the" in order to have a meaning, and the only way is S. Therefore it is a sentence that can be understood even changing the word order. And be sure that neither Russell nor Gödel will resuscitate by this fact.

The solution is as easy as old. Russell paradox is avoided by forbidden the expression "set of all sets" and using "class of all sets" instead. Fantastic!!!! if you find any obstacle constructing a syntax-free language, no problem. Forbid the corresponding expression and use another one. This is the advantage of being you the language creator.

In any case, if the human being is not eternal, only a finite set of sentences can be built through its existence. In finite sets neither Russell's nor Gödel's theories can be applied.

Nevertheless, if your aim is not to know how an optimal language can be built, but to be applauded, no problem I confess that I am wrong. Happy?

P.S.

The preferred programing language by most of AI researchers is Lisp. The reason is because they claim that Lisp is a syntax-free language. Of course Lisp has a syntax, but it is so odd and small that Lips lovers used to consider that it is syntax-free. Indeed, they are assigning to the expression syntax-free a different meaning. It is the inconvenient of using language extensions that are not universal. Universal extensions are foundational in categorical algebra. By no means are my invention.

I do not deserve such a honor.

Dear Mats Envall,

You have written this sentence;

"A language use words to refer to a reality. What you actually do when you "solve" Russell's paradox by changing the expression from "the set of all sets" into "the class of all sets"

¿Do you know what you have said?

I have not solved the Russell paradox in any way, this solution is the universally accepted before I was born. You can see this topic in this classical book on category theory

http://katmat.math.uni-bremen.de/acc/acc.pdf

Read the firsts chapters and you can find this solution set->class->conglomerate.

The use of the verb forbidden in my text is only in a colloquial style.

In addition, in the same book you can learn the concept of monad and universal extension, and perhaps then you can understand what I have said.

In addition, I must repeat: NON SEQUITUR.Your argumentation is against some topic that I never have mentioned. I have no interest talking about Russell paradox.

If you can dialog about my topic analyze the concepts i have mentioned, namely, "algebraic universal extensions" and "syntax-free"; where "syntax-free" means that sentences are not order dependent, and "universal extension" means super-objects determined by F-universal structure morphisms being F an endofunctor. If your speech does not is focussed upon these topics, you have a serious problem of comprehension.

Languages have been used by human being through thousands years disregarding Russell paradox and ignoring it. If you have interest in my topic, work focusing your attention what I say. Otherwise it seems that your interest is only a matter of honor.

This is not the path of science.

We submit a manuscript to a journal, reviewers raised some scientific point. We incorporate their suggestions in revised manuscript. Revised manuscript again reviewed by reviewers and they accept revised manuscript. Editor write that manuscript is acceptable but manuscript should be checked by native English speaker). We tried our best and submit manuscript after making all English related corrections. Editor reject our paper solely based on English problem, nothing to do with science. This is one of the worst experience I have in my scientific where manuscript is solely rejected based on English writing. This is common that on most of our manuscript we get one comment about quality of English. We are not only one most of Indian scientists are facing this problem.

Dear Gajendra, your story sounds sad, but it is shared by many non-native English speakers, in that they represent in fact the vast majority of scientists. And paradoxically, the most demanding editors or reviewers are often non-native english speakers, who are convinced that they speak a perfect English or at least a much better English than yours.

Indeed, it's not fair to have to pay for proofreading. Yet, it is not much compared to the amount of money that has been necessary to achieve the whole work that you try to publish. It's not much compared to the excessive cost of the publication itself, as many journals require huge sums to allow you to be published. And it doesn't concern only journals with high impact factor. There are even journals which charge you for submission, even if your article is rejected by the editor. Thus, more than language, the most discriminating factor is probably money.

Anyway, it's all the more satisfying when eventually manage to publish. And I see with pleasure that the barrier of english language didn't prevent you from publishing a lot of papers. Félicitations(बधाई) !

Look at history. Stage 1) in 17's centruries scientist were doing their jobs with their pocket money, scinece for fun period.... Then, stage 2) Universities accepted scientist to do their job in faculties giving some money, science for science period... stage 3) increase in scientists let them competation with each other publishing paper, that is called science for publication... Paradigm is this now, science for english publication., why not esperanto :), so everybody will start again from fun to other stages...

Yes, the language is a big hurdle in writing the research articles and it plays a critical role in getting the acceptance at the journal. There is no other alternative, we have to improve somehow our writing skills. The non-native english speakers have to put more efforts than the native english speakers in that sense. But, there is some good news. Now-a-days there are many proof readers around if we can afford one! Also, there are some good books and tools avilable today which can help in improving our writing skills.

Computer languages (Fortran, C, C++, Java, ...) are an interesting case. These are standardized by ISO is Switzerland through a process of international agreement. Everyone uses the same notation and syntax. Computer codes are portable across country boundaries. And, sorry Mats, the keywords in these languages are all based on English words.

It might be a historical fluke that the English Navy was better than Spain's, but the hard fact is that today there is an established international language and it is English. Everyone learns it in school. Mats obviously writes quite well in English. In my experience, Germans know English better than most Americans. Scientists use English because it is the only language they all know. It works.

Scientific writing is not easy, it need lot of experince and hard work. It is not easy even to researchers who have English as native language. It will be grate if native english speakers write their comment on scientific writing. I means what is their experience when they publish papers in English journals particularly high IF journals and journals published from UK.

Mats, it seems that whatever it's in german, english or esperanto, you could write pages or even books on every topic. Writing an article is not an easy task. I understand Pr. Raghava, in that english is not the only difficulty when you want to write an article. As a matter of fact english is not the key point, and it's only a secondary problem. Once you have organized you data or your thoughts in a way that seems logical and understandable by most readers, once your message is clear, whether it's in your mother tongue or not, then it's only a question of translation. As far as I am concerned, the main difficulty while writing in english is to modulate the message I want ot deliver by subtleties. When I form an idea in my mother tongue, most of the times it's not black or white, it's rather a grey chosen in a wide spctrum of tones. I can qualify my statements in my native language, but my vocabulary is not rich enough in english to add subtle touches to my comments. This can lead to a mistranslation, to a message different from the one I expected. And this, even hours spent reading articles or dictionary can easily help tosolve the problem. in addition, expressions in my native language have not always their counterpart in english, and I have circumlocutions to get as close as possible to the original idea. Because of that, I can't write any article with fingers in the nose.

Of course, you're right. The use of a neutral yet universal language like esperanto or any new one such as proposed by Dr. Tarancon would give equal chance to evrey scientist and and restore a balance too mauch in favour or Americans right now. It's however a long-term solution,as one has to learn the basis of this universal language. WIth all due respect to Pr. Gajendra Raghava, I'm not sure that he wish he learnt a new language right now. Learnng process requires much investment (in time I mean) and it would be much easier and faster for next generations who are able to learn early in their life, when they're still student. So yes, it's probably an excellent solution, but unfortunately not all scientists will fully benefit from it. Anyhow, I agree, I have no solution for the time being, except a system of free or at least cheap translation proposed to non native english speakers. It might be a solution for a transition period at short- to mid-term. Otherwise, you would create a novel artifical division between older and youger scientists.

In any case, the amercian lobbying is so strong that a stronger cohesion is needed among non-native english scientists all over the world to impose the idea of a new universal language for science. Beyond what I wrote above, which is finally anecdoctical, the real challenge is here. Right now, highest ranked journals are american, the most attended meetings are american, and I don't know why amarican scientists would like it to change. Probably if we were in their shoes, we wouldn't either.

Language is a non-technical barrier in publishing the scientific papers in high impact factor journals. Now a days majority of publishers started the editorial assistance services on payment basis. Certainly you require lot of effort or lobbying for to over come the non-technical barrier. I hope in near future some software will be developed so that non-native English scientists can convert their data and ideas in to scientific papers in good impact factor journals.

Due to history, English is now the dominant language of science and thechnology whether we like it or not. To ignore this fact will lead to one's work being overlooked. How much more would genetics have developed had Mendel, the Father of Genetics, published his laws in English rather than German in 1865? Similarly, would we be referring to LAV instead of HIV had the paper which named the virus LAV been in English instead of French????

In the beginning of the 20th century, quite a lot of scientists have tried to invent a neutral, artificial language for science (Bertrand Russel, Rudolf Carnap or Ludiwg Wittgenstein, to name a few). There were a lot of interesting, most fertile thoughts - but they never found a language applicable for all of science.

I wonder if this will ever be possible, for words and sentences, when used by humans, gain their meaning by being used. And in different sciences even the words and sentences of English are used quite differently, in different contexts, refering to different objects. A linguist (without special training) hardly understands what a biologically or medically trained neuroscientist is talking about and vice verca - even if they examine the same phenomena and even if they both speak in English.

One could say they that, in a way, they speak different languages. And though it is possible to learn each other's language it's sometimes really hard to combine their knowledge. Because translation can be a tricky thing. Different scientific fields may look at different aspects of the same phenomena and base their theories on different assumptions. This is possible because theories are always abstractions. In the end, you may have two different theories for the same phenomenon before you, both are perfectly useful to explain your data (in very different contexts), both prove to be valid and relilable - which one should you chose?

Biologists and medical people might not be the best examples here. In my experience they speak in about 2/3 English and 1/3 Latin. Even native English speakers have trouble with that mix. But the goal is to make sure that the bio/med type all understand each other, not that everyone understands them. Most fields have their own jargon, and particular usage of certain words. It's amusing to watch a biologist and computer scientist get confused because they have a completely different concept of what the word "graph" means.

True. What you see what you believe.

To illustrate the fact that language is a big handicap in science, I have been attending an international meeting in which at least 80% of the plenary sessions are trusted by american speakers. It's a bit less in concurrent sessions, but I felt very sorry for certain non-native english speakers who were barely understandable despite their effort. People in the room didn't listened to them very long, precisely because they didn't understand them. Moreover, non-native english speakers experienced true moments of loneliness when they were asked questions which they could not get and which needed to be translated by tertiary persons.

Thus, the problem of language can be corrected in articles thanks to the help of proofreaders, for example. Yet, this problem is more accute for speeches in conferences.

One of the most important role of language in science is communication, not just among scientists but also between scientists and the public at large.

I fully agree with importance of language, we are discussing on this forum because we are using common language

I make all the work in Spanish and when it is finish I translate to English, my University make the translate to mesh language English, and the corrections I continuous in English without problem. When I am not sure with my translate I ask a friend or professor. But I not feel many problem.

I use the translator all time when I write here (if I need a word). I open Research Gate and another window with the translator to talk with you.

Ana María Sánchez Peralta

I agree you!

This discussion reminds me of the book I received from a friend from Hungary written

in Hungarian which is a very difficult language to translate. Since I read and speak

primarily English, and a little Spanish, a book in Hungarian sits upon the shelf and is still unread. I would like to know what it says, but since the topics are technical,

a normal dictionary that translates Hungarian to English is of little use.

Do any of you know of a computer program that you can download, and it will

translate Hungarian to English?

Of course both the in-depth knowledge and excellent presentation are in high demand to let your research / innovations get known to rest of the stake holders in society. You are right sir. I think in one's mother tongue one can perform or do better to best with minimum efforts !!! Only we Indian are highly bending towards English language...why not Hindi, or other dialectics !!! A student knows everything about his/her surroundings while can't present when question come to English.. The entire world as Japan, China, most of Europe, ..... are best examples

Here is an interesting article on IF in the digital age. I am giving the citation. I hope in the digital age some one will come up soon with a software where every one can write high standard article in any language they want to publish.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 63(11):2140–2145, 2012

Good discussion. Perhaps human languages, and English in particular, is like democracy, not a very good system but better than all of the alternatives. Certainly we need some shared language and I can think of two requirements it should meet for use in the sciences:

1. Being widely known and understood

2. Being unambiguous

English partly satisfies #1 and does so better than any other language, but as a skilled user of the language, I know that it does not satisfy #2 except when used with great discipline. Even when discipline is applied, there are problems because, like all human languages, it is changing. The meanings of words change over decades and years and even grammatical rules change.

Computer science has produced examples of unambiguous languages (programming languages) but there are two problems with those:

A. They are not directly connected to any model of the real world

B. None is as common as English

Still, information technology might eventually solve these problems. For example, perhaps a wiki can be used to build new communication methods using contributions from around the world. Linguists and computer scientists might create a precise language understood by machines and machine translators. A wiki could be used to build the relationship of human language to the machine language. The author of a paper could get a translation from his native language to the machine language and back to his native language to find and correct errors and ambiguities.

Juan-Estaban I am very curious about syntax-free grammar. Is there a brief explanation of the advantage and how ambiguity is avoided? All computer languages that I know have a syntax.

Thanks Ramarao Poduri for the reference to the paper on the weakening relationship between IF and citation numbers. In the current scenario, I think the best estimate of the impact that an individual paper has is its Citation Number as listed in Google Scholar. While this is by no means a perfect measure, at least Google Scholar tries to be inclusive whereas the paper citation numbers as listed by SCORPUS and Web of Science are only based on the journals that are listed in their respective databases.

Here is another article how language is becoming a non-technical barrier.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13562517.2011.611871

To Michael Clark:

All you need is a good dictionnary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao

Juan-Esteban Palomar Tarancon's argument ignores that language is the medium to convey nostalgia, excitement, dread, sadness, love and fear. The creation of an artificial language devoid of history and context would make conveying the essence of humanity - private thoughts and feelings - difficult if not impossible. And this is the heart of much of historical and qualitative research methods. Although RG is geared toward the quantitative, let us not forget that there is a whole world of non-quantitative science. In fact, it is the only way we have of understanding human behavior.

As long as this artificial language is not based on some old, natural language I fear that it would prohibit creative thinking that is crucial for discovery. Language does influence the way we think, in other words it has an effect on how our brain is wired. Just think what happened to science at every language shift, like from Latin to German, from German to English (just to mention the last 300 hundred years).

Here is another latest reference

http://www.researchtrends.com/issue-31-november-2012/the-language-of-future-scientific-communication/?utm_source=ECU001&SIS_ID=728174&utm_term=Research%20Trends%20Issue%2031&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&bid=84VG24F:FF3Z172

Ramarao, the article you reference is interesting particularly the part about which languages are used in what kinds of sciences. English, Chinese, Russian, and Germans are each used more in the hard sciences than the "soft" sciences. Can I suggest theories for this? For Russian and German publications, the high percentages in hard sciences are due to the focus of the cultures of Germany and Russia. Native speakers of those language are more likely to participant in hard sciences. Chinese and English, I'll guess, attract more non-native authors in "hard" science than "soft" science because the topics themselves are less culturally dependent so that the authors are more likely to choose a more global language (I believe that Mandarin/Chinese is second after English in number of speakers). For example, geometry, algebra, theory of computation, and gravity are understood in the same way around the world and the understanding is independent of language. Mathematical notation and programming languages help ensure that common understanding, but also the abstract concepts in those fields are not culturally dependent nor dependent on language.

A good question. Language is not at all a great barrier in doing science but i has a lot in applying it. When you certain research, you do not need to communicate with anyone unless you find any problem, so language is not the issue. But once you did it, You need to explain it to whole world. You must be knowing "A great presentation can make a small work into big one". So i feel, in order to understand science, you do not need language but to explain you should have a good grip over communicating language.

Hope its Helpful

Sudhanshu

I'm a bit confused by Ron Gutman's post. If you look at the Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine as a proxy for focus on "hard" science, winners come in much greater numbers form English-speaking countries, largely because of the USA. The UK and Germany are roughly tied for second, at roughly 1/3 of the USA. One could argue that is expected based on population difference. Russia and China have much lower numbers, despite very large populations. So, I'm not convinced by the "cultural" argument. While I would agree that Germany has a very distinguished record in hard sciences, if the question is about language used in science, I would also point out that the most famous of German physics journals, Annalen der Physik, now is published in English, not German.

Sorry for the confusion. My post was about what languages are used in publications, not about nobel prizes and I only proposed an explanation for the statistics at the end of the article posted by Ramarao above. I actually don't even know the reliability of that information, but they show that Russian is used more in physical sciences than in other fields. My "cultural" argument is intended to explain that. Bill, if you have better sources of statistics please post them. If you have better explanations please post those.

With reference to Ron Gutman's comments, there are more Mandarin Chinese speakers than English speakers. However, while the English speakers are spread throughout the world, Mandarin Chinese speakers are concentrated mainly in China and northeast Asia. Moreover, literacy in Chinese characters is more wide spread in the region than spoken Mandarin. In addition, Taiwan uses the older form of written Chinese while a newer form is used in the rest of China.

Thanks for the correction.

Definetly the language plays a pivotal role in science. But it need to be very simple and clear just to make others understand the concept/topic. And this is possible only if you that are good at the subject.

Ideally language should not be barrier in science. It is important to express your science/views in language which is acceptable to most of us. Without International language it is impossible to do research. Question is why English, I believe it is because it widely used language. It seems whether we like it or not but we have to learn English for writing research articles.

English is now used almost exclusively as the language of science. The adoption of a de facto universal language of science has had an extraordinary effect on scientific communication: by learning a single language, scientists around the world gain access to the vast scientific literature and can communicate with other scientists anywhere in the world.

We should keep in mind that it is not just science that has adopted English, but also business and transportation. A common language is essential in aviation and seafaring to avoid or handle emergencies. English is a language that uses a widely accepted alphabet system and has grown from adopting terms from many other languages while avoiding some of the difficulties and perhaps needless aspects, such as memorizing gender of nouns as in German, Spanish, French and other languages.

Throughout history various languages from the Indian subcontinent, China, West Asia and the Mediterranean region had been used as the language of Science as empires rise and fall. Latin and Arabic both had their turn. With the spread of the British Empire throughout the world in the 19 th century and the rise of the USA as a superpower in the 20th century it became the turn of English. Now, with the widespread use of mass communications media such as radio, movies, TV and most pervasive of all, the internet, English is the dominant global language. If you want your research findings to be noticed and impact the world, you have to publish your results in English. The case in point is the identification of the virus which causes AIDS. The Pasteur Institute group of researchers actually published their findings earlier in French and called the virus LAV but we all now commonly call it HIV because the later publication in English by the NIH group called it HIV.

As I see it, there are two key options; one is collaborative writing, the other is publishing in our own languages, and then get translated by colleagues.

If a non-English speaking researcher can create an initial rough translation into English with help from a local colleague, then they should be able to get a native English speaking researcher in their field to proofread it to improve the English. I have done this on occasion for non-English speaking colleagues previously in the areas of epigenetics and autoimmunity. It doesn't have to be co-authored. A simple acknowledgement at the end of the paper should be good enough if anything is needed. The original author can benefit by having another person review the content and organization of the paper besides just proofreading to improve the English. It can also set up the possibility for future collaborations on projects of mutual interest. Of course you want someone you can trust with your unpublished ideas. You might meet someone at a conference you could ask for their future help with manuscripts if you feel comfortable with them, and if they feel comfortable with you. As far as professional translation companies, they can be expensive and the work may be done by someone who is not familiar with the terminology of your field. You would probably want them to first translate the abstract and then you can judge whether you want to pay for them to do the rest of the manuscript.

The role of language in science is primarily to facilitate communication between peers. Indeed, the results of research require some communication to be validated or finally being accepted by the scientific community. By an agreement unreported English has become the language of science. However, if we try to approach the issue of communication of research results in terms of the social responsibility of scientists to their respective countries, we see that the language of science, is primarily one that allows scientists to feed the national authorities in the revision of public policies. In this spirit, the first language of results communication is the country's official language. First publication at national level and in the language of the country seems to be relevant.

Moreover, the idea of ​​international recognition research, or positioning the country in the large international scientific community ultimately require an English publication, which would be finally published after been reviewed and commented by peers. This step requires researchers from non-English countries to provide in their budget an amount for English revision or tranduction.

Language is the instrument of living that each of us gives us the opportunity to communicate with each other without trouble and at the same time we give each other, in time and space where we live and work.

So, new research colleagues from America, Japan, Ghana, Australia, commonly immediately acquired by me and millions of others in record time, and so we have a management with a fast, sustainable each time, scientific research from each of us, which means a more positive direction of humanity in scientific research in world.