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English a dominant technical language

English a dominant technical language

English a dominant technical language

(OP)

I'd like to learn about the raison d'être for the apparent supremacy of English as international "lingua franca" when dealing with technical, or otherwise scientific, subjects. Thanks.

RE: English a dominant technical language

No need to search very far IMHO.

Since WW2 there have been simply more native English speaking engineers (mostly Americans and British) than any other language. The fact that the pc and associated software are predominantly American developments has led to a spread of English computer jargon (first) then via the internet English in general to the rest of the world.

Besides technical/scientific communication English has been promoted enormously by the American movie and music industry.

Never say never but I think Mandarin is not going to replace English... soon.

So this is why all machines have English printed on them ("on/off") except..... washing machines. Bunch of sexists! smile

RE: English a dominant technical language

(OP)

Does it mean that prior to WW2 the situation was different ?

RE: English a dominant technical language

I am not a history expert by any stretch.

IMHO:

Since WW II, the only major economic nation that did not see fighting on its native soil was ----- USA.

After the war, their economic "machine" was the only one that didn't need rebuilding. All the other nations were in rebuilding mode.

Before WW I and II, the major economic powers in the world included, loosely and without order, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Russia, Italy, Spain, among others. After the world wars, petty much only the US.


To answer your question:

the raison d'ĂȘtre for the apparent supremacy of English as international "lingua franca"

English speaking nations dominate the world economy currently. When this changes, the internatinal "lingua franca" will also change. Chinese anyone?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: English a dominant technical language

I've always heard the answer as "Because we have The Bomb, that's why"

Much technical language was originally rooted in German since they had so many advances. The relative simplicity of English for describing technical items probably gained favor so the language became more powerful in that area.

epoisses has it right... except I didn't think washing machines had on/off switches!

"If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut."
-- by Albert Einstein

RE: English a dominant technical language

Technical/scientific terms didn't begin after WW2 but probably started after Archimedes or Newton or the Industrial Revolution. English is a mongrel language made up of words from most other countries. Scientific terms are probably dominated by latin/greek origin. The french raison d'etre (and other french) is used in the english language as the aristocracy in England spoke french back in some century or other. Now they just own a second home in France.  

corus

RE: English a dominant technical language

25362 wrote, "I'd like to learn about the raison d'ĂȘtre for the apparent supremacy..."

English is the language spoken by the people of richest most powerful country on the planet.  We have supremacy.  Why shouldn't our language?

RE: English a dominant technical language

Quote (corus):

Technical/scientific terms didn't begin after WW2 but probably started after Archimedes or Newton or the Industrial Revolution.

That is a bit of a span in time.

Also, most of the postings here are recent western society centric.

The arabic numerals - was probably not in latin. The Egyptians technical terms were probably not in latin or greek initially.

The Indians (of India) were practicing brain surgery way back when most of Europe was still bleeding their patients.

The ancient Peruvians in the Andes were brewing beer.

The vikings were sailing around the world and conquering Great Britain.


Like boffintech said, English is the language spoken by the people of the richest most powerful country on the planet. They have supremacy, so it is their language.

When the next major society takes over the world, economically and otherwise, we will be speaking a different language then.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: English a dominant technical language

People may like to consider the influence of the British Empire in the 1800's and early 1900's, which controlled a fair proportion of the globe, and traded with most of the rest of it (UK industrial production in early 1800's was around 90% of world output).
Of course, after WW2, the use of English (especially as a second language) is perpetrated and expanded by the American influence.  But not, probably, just because they have the bomb, otherwise Russian and Mandarin would be significant...

RE: English a dominant technical language

My history teacher taught me that the industrial revolution was started in Britain, so industry and technology as we understand it today was born in Britain, making English the obvious choice for a "lingua franca".

As others have stated, the huge influence of the US has served to bolster this position.

RE: English a dominant technical language

The English exported their language all over the World (even into Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall).  It stuck.  Other exported languages stuck too - most notably Spanish, and to a lesser extent, French.  However, the countries that took over the industrial World were largely the English-speaking ones, plus of course England itself.

The fact that computers (and therefore computer languages and terms) grew out of UK/US also has a bearing.  Ever seen a computer program not writtenin English?  I've seen other OS's, but never a programming language.

RE: English a dominant technical language

Have you seen APL?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: English a dominant technical language

I think it is because languages are hard to learn and there has to be a reason for someone to go to the trouble to do so.  There is currently is economic basis for technical information to be primarily in the English language, but this may change someday.

Languages become extinct all the time when people no longer have an incentive to speak them.  Outside of academia, there is nothing anyone can do about it.  This is what those charts in dictionaries are all about.

The US can pass laws making English the official language, and the French can have their language purity committees.  But in the long run, language is going to evolve all on its own.  

RE: English a dominant technical language

Yes, I have seen APL (if it is the APL I think of - A Programming Language) But that is not a language at all. It is a collection of (som say powerful) symbols. Why are you asking?

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: English a dominant technical language

Gunnar, are you claiming that the programming language called A Programming Language is not a programming language? I think you need to speak to Humpty Dumpty:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

Either way, machine language is a programming language with no English content (and yes, I have programmed in hex)

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: English a dominant technical language

HEX - me too, but the undelying mnemonics of the associated assembly languages are normally pseudo-english (ld, sto, add, sub, push, pop, etc).

BTW, is HEX ever written down using cyrillic, arabic, greek, etc alphabets to represent those numbers between 9 and 16?

RE: English a dominant technical language

Hmm.. an interesting subject. I'd deem graybeach wrong, languages are very easy to learn - most of them - specially up to the point where you can read technical data / technical books. For instance, I can manage a technical book in French no problem, but in a French restaurant with French speaking staff I'd have to resort to a LOT of gesticulation... As I live in a tiny country with it's own awfully complicated language, so it makes sense to just learn English and not have to wait 5-6 years until some book gets translated.

Firstly, English is one of the easiest languages out there. For instance, it has no cases of nouns. German has 4, my own language has 7! It also has no gender of nouns. It has only a few verb tenses and you need to know but 3 to speak it well. Illogical spelling is a problem, but that can be mastered in a few years too. Pronounciation is... well sort of "different", but as there's English music and English movies and English everything from everywhere, most people hear it as kids, and are quite used to it.

Historically, I think one of the reasons is that after WW2 English simply took over in the Western World (meaning outside the Iron Curtain). Compared to the number of English - speaking individuals, all others were a minority, and by English speaking I mean "people who spoke English", not just "People whose native language was English", so it made sense to adopt it as a sort of an "international" language in every field of human existance. While USSR and other behind-the-iron-curtain technologies and languages were more or less boycotted, it was natural that technical achievements and everything else produced by English - speaking people took over. The USA was a leading force that was the only big Western country that wasn't bombed and didn't have to re-build. Germany was cut in 2 and re-building itself, so it was too busy to spread it's language, and French, Portugeze and Spanish-speaking people were either too few and too busy rebuilding (in Europe) or too poor (in South America) to make a serious impact on industry. Nordic countries kept to themselves. At the same time, people in all of those areas already knew or quickly learned English for it's ease and simplicity and sudden usefulness: when you're a minority, you want to be compatibile with majority, specially if the majority is more advanced. Of course, same goes for technical areas: most literature, magazines etc. were in English. When the Western economies picked it up in the 60-ies it was natural they adopted English, everything already WAS in English. Same happened in the 90-ies with the fall of Socialism. Everything already WAS in English, the Internet happened and was in English, and naturally former Soviets, Yugoslavians etc. turned to English also. Looks very natural, then, that today we have English-speaking everything, not just technology. But in true, Hollywood I think made a greater impact on English as a supremacy, than programming languages did. I mean, if you watch movies, read books and play games in English, you'll also work in it.


RE: English a dominant technical language

Gunnar,

SomptingGuy asked "Ever seen a computer program not writtenin English?"

So, I replied "Have you seen APL?". I also think that APL is not really written in English.

By the way, I went to IBM's "APL School" back in the 80's. I did miserably, but did graduate. It is a good thing I didn't have to use it for real. Thank goodness for pascal.

If you are familiar with APL, I am guessing either you are a programming guru, or someone of my vintage?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: English a dominant technical language

Yes Ashereng,

And a very good vintage, too (1940).

I actually tried using APL once. Liked the idea, but it never caught on. Too much happened in one line and it was not easy to use in embedded (we embedded DEC PDPs) control.

Re "a program not written in English" I would say Yes, have seen that. Even done it myself. We once decided to produce a unit for statistical quality control using FORTH. We defined all operations (words) in Swedish and thought we were very clever. So the program listing read like a novel by Selma Lagerlof or August Strindberg (famous Swedish authors).

The unit was some kind of a succes and the British bought quite a few of them. Since FORTH is very easily modified and also extensible, the tecchies in GB wanted to do their own modifications and extensions. They were not happy when they discovered what we had been doing. The whole system was later "ported" to English.

My first micro was a 4004. 10.8 microseconds cycle time. Took several cycles (like six or eight) to read a nibble (yes, was a four bit machine), modify it and write back to memory. Used paper to write down mnemonics, hand translated to HEX, typed into a ProLog programmer to burn those 1708A (256 bytes) Eproms.

English has always been my preferred language when doing technical things. It started very early. I was working on freight boats in 1955-56 during the summer holidays and the crew was very international. I soon realised that English was the language best understood and that, plus reasons like simplicity grammar-wise, is probably why it has gained universal acceptance.

We had Latin in the earlier centuries, then French and, at least in our part of the world, German up to WW2. The outcome of WW2 made German absolutely impossible and English a very popular languge. I think it will stay popular for many years to come.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: English a dominant technical language

Wow! That is a great vintage.

Not many people have heard of APL, much less program in it. I myself was never a good APL programmer. I still don't quite understand how I passed the school.

What you and your colleagues have done in FORTH is very mirthsome. My colleagues and I have done similar things, in different context, in our product (I wrote software for 5 years, shortly after school - the IBM training went a loooong way back then), with the express intention that no one outside of us knew we had done it. Of course, that can not be since it is a commercial product. Back then, clients had a better sense of humour, and chalked it up to overworked and socially inept programmer's pranks. I am sure were we to do that today, it would not go over as well.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: English a dominant technical language

Great story Gunnar. Hands up, who has programmed in Forth? I still miss it.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: English a dominant technical language

What it all boils down to is money.  English has been, in my view, since the time of the British Empire, the language of business and trade.  Also, much of the development of engineering and science (not all, but much) was in UK and USA.  So, technical, followed business.  It used to be that Structural Ph.D.s at US universities were required to know German, but likely not anymore.  To those who don't have English as a first language - sorry.  I've tried smatterings of others but my accent kills it so bad that everyone ends up talking to me in English!
cheers

RE: English a dominant technical language

I remember when the Jupiter Ace microcomputer was launched in the early 80's.  It only came with Forth and the computer mags of the day heaped praise on it and contained articles explaining how Forth worked (remember when computer mags were interesting?).  I would have loved to own one, but my pocket money wouldn't stretch that far.

RE: English a dominant technical language

I had one!

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: English a dominant technical language

You can run Forth on almost any micro, PC or Apple. Lots of systems available. Google and find!

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: English a dominant technical language

I remember the name of the Jupiter Ace and the rave reviews, but never had one or saw one other than in photographs. VIC-20 and C-64 and BBC Model 'B' were my first machines.

http://oldcomputers.net/jupiter-ace.html

Look at the spec!

----------------------------------
  I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

RE: English a dominant technical language

My first machines were:

Atari - 16K (can't remember the model)
Radio Shack TRS-80
Commodore PET?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: English a dominant technical language

North Star Horizon (weekends only, my Dad's accountant's)
Sinclair ZX81 & RML380Z (school computer club)

and then finally my very own...

Camputers Lynx.

RE: English a dominant technical language

ZX81.... as soon as you touched the 16k memory extension it caused a hard reset of the "system"...
but at least you knew why it hung and you could prevent it (sticky tape all around) unlike some more recent products by company M...

RE: English a dominant technical language

Absolutely!  I used a pencil/tape combo myself.  Pencil to locate, tape to hold.  School had a printer too -that was cheesey.  I did actually cut my Sinclair teeth on my uncle's ZX80 though.  That only had "fast mode".

RE: English a dominant technical language

Fast is a relative term.

10 FOR A = 1 TO 10
20 PRINT A
30 NEXT

on a ZX81.... my 3 yrd old can count faster!

RE: English a dominant technical language

Ah yes, but in "fast mode" the screen shut down while the CPU was doing somehing else so you'd get <RUN> ... fizzzzzzzzz ... <Screen full of numbers>.

RE: English a dominant technical language

SomptingGuy (Automotive)
Ever remember trying to do a spreadsheet on one (zx81) , putting in 8 cells and have it tell you it was out of memory?
B.E.

RE: English a dominant technical language

Oh yes, only "space invaders" for me.

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