Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)
by danieltillett on Monday July 04, 2016 @04:17PM
(#12032786)
Do you really think you can understand the concepts in a scientific paper knowing just 200 words of the language they are written in?
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Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)
by m00n on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @03:13AM
(#12034852)
In my field of expertise, which is mathematics, this is certainly possible. My French and Russian is bad, to say the least. I doubt I have a vocabulary of more than 200 words in each, but I have no problems reading, for example, EGA [1]. Also there are entire journals in the field publicising translations of articles, which seems to contradict your claim that bleeding-edge scientific concepts are non-translatable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89l%C3%A9ments_de_g%C3%A9o...
Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)
by danieltillett on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @07:17AM
(#12035618)
Mathamatics is not like other fields - it isn't even really a science.
The non-mathamtical language used in mathamatics papers is easily translated, but understanding the maths is impossible without the required background and it can't be translated into any natural human language. Maths uses a synthetic symbolic language which mathematicians around the world share allowing them to communicate - in the natural sciences we use English instead.