> I am not saying you can't write a scientific paper in these languages at all, but I am saying that you need to standardise the languages better before you can do that.

The way to make a language fit for writing a scientific paper in it is to write a scientific paper in it, and whenever you're at a loss for words, either make them up as you go along or take them from another language. The latter option is usually chosen by people already fluent in that language, which is how English scientific vocabulary got its multiple layers of Arabic, Greek and Latin loan words.

However, loanwords can render the underlying logic incomprehensible. For example, I recently watched the Japanese series アンナチュラル annachuraru (Unnatural [Death]) on a Chinese streaming platform (because that one didn't have region locking blocking European IP addresses). When the word エチレングリコール echirengurikōru (ethylene glycol/ethane diol) came up, obviously someone had to ask to repeat it, because it's such a long and complicated foreign word. The Chinese commenters reading the subtitles were very amused by that, because the Chinese translation is 乙二醇 yĭ èr chún and has a systematic composition: 乙 yĭ is used like the Roman numeral Ⅱ or the Latin letter B in enumerations and indicates here an organic molecule with two carbon atoms. 二 èr is the number two. 醇 chún indicates alcohol. Essentially a mirror image of "ethane diol" that even someone without much knowledge about chemistry can understand.

Some people do this. I've heard of school teachers teaching science in Sotho or Zulu that explain scientific terms in the local language. A car for example (though this is standard) is "sefatanaga" which literally refers to its action along the ground, whereas a motorcycle (again standard terminology) is "sethuthuthu" which is onomatopoeia. An attentive school teacher can extend this to things like a chemical reaction or perhaps a physical force.

The only other point I would like to add is the actual internal variation that would complicate a scientific article. The dialect that is typical of my home area and the dialect that is taught at school have incompatible spelling due to pronunciation, but is verbally compatible with some amount of deliberation.

An example would be "Ke tla go bona." (I'll see you [later]; correct spelling) That's actually pronounced "Ge dao bona" in the variation. There are not enough people interested to find a way to get around the standardisation issue and, in fact, whichever dialect becomes standard is inherently a form of discrimination. This is what has happened to the Sepedi dialect of Northern Sotho. It has become the politically correct term. I've heard many people introduce themselves as a Mopedi (a Pedi person) while I would later point out to them that they are from a different dialect, which they would immediately concede: they meant it as umbrella term. In their defense, there is a difference between linguists and between actual users of a language. I guess you could say Sepedi is colonising the other dialects, though without any violence as the term might insinuate.

One reason might be that "Sesotho sa Leboa", which is the correct term for the language, Northern Sotho, is almost never used in verbal conversation. The term was almost certainly invented by linguists. The most common term would be "Sotho", but due to the confusion with Southern Sotho (a separate language) the default then instead becomes "Sepedi". It is reminiscent of "Castellano" vs. "Español".

The Chinese do have to suffer through the other kind of "translation" too. I had a friend complain to me about the unreasonably long country name 圣文森特和格林纳丁斯. They're not wrong about that being an objectively unreasonable name in the linguistic context!

For the curious: sheng-wen-sen-te-he-ge-lin-na-ding-si. 圣 sheng is a fully conventionalized loan-translation of the Christian word "saint". 文森特 wen-sen-te is a sound transcription of Vincent. 和 he is an ordinary Chinese word meaning "and". 格林纳丁斯 ge-lin-na-ding-si is another sound transcription, for "Grenadines".

> There was a funny meme that essentially illustrated how different Sotho grammar can be, and how your figurative use of language can essentially hide meaning through ambiguity. [1]

> [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCU2Uh42qS4. Explanation: She is actually just saying that she stole her mom's money that should have been used to make pots with for people that had paid. Literally: "I did the thing that made that the pots couldn't be made."

This literal rendering isn't far off of normal (if inelegant) vernacular English. "I did the thing that made [it] [so that] the pots couldn't be made."

We had quite a fun time in the office joking about this and eventually we found that the more you think about what she said, the more it actually makes "sense" and for a few minutes after that you've confused yourself so much that you can't speak proper English!

Also, in "made it" in English, usually "it" should be specified whether it is the subject, object or perhaps a neutral referral to the situation. In Sotho there is a different approach whereby you have noun classes and they have concord with the rest of the sentence. That way, you can infer which "it" you are talking about by the different nouns hopefully being in different classes and "it" thus being qualified. This can in some cases make a sentence less ambiguous than the corresponding English sentence. Essentially, you then have multiple versions of "it". Humans are always in separate classes from objects, which again are in separate classes from for example plants. You can point out of course that it's unlikely that a plant is both the subject and object of a sentence. The language would be sensible even without these classes, but it makes it much more rhythmic and easier to follow the gist of a discussion.

A possible original version would be: "Ke dirile selo seo gore dipitša ga di dirwe." In this case you have "seo" in concord with the thing being done and "di" in concord with the word for pots.