Latin

[Mark Garland]

Rienk de Jong writes:

> How do you know you can keep up with the literature by reading papers in
>  English, if you only read papers in English? Willi Hennig published a m=
ost
>  influential book in 1951 entitled 'Grundz=FCge einer phylogenetischen
>  Systematik'. It was widely and fiercely discussed in Germany and some o=
ther
>  European countries where people were able to understand German.  But it
only
>  became widely known in the English speaking world in 1966, when an Amer=
ican
>  edition of this work ('Phylogenetic systematics') appeared. Much of the
>  discussion was done all over again. Is this what you call 'keeping up w=
ith
>  the literature'?

Two points:

(1)  That was not 'keeping up with the literature.'  On the other hand, on=
e
might argue that Hennig's work became more well-known in the late 60's bec=
ause
the time was ripe for it--not just because it was translated into English.
After all, Sneath and Sokal and others had developed pretty coherent
alternatives to traditional 'intuitive' classifications, and folks were
looking around for approaches to phylogenetic reconstruction that were
suitable for use with computers.  See how long it took for Mendel to be
rediscovered.  That didn't involve English at all.

I have no idea what I'm talking about here, so feel free to ignore the
paragraph above.

(2)  In 1951, many scientific journals were in languages other than Englis=
h.
There are many fewer today.  I also suspect that the proportion of scienti=
fic
books (other than textbooks) published in languages other than English is
smaller today than in 1951.  These facts would seem to make it less likely
that ignorant English-speakers will miss a future Hennig.

I will never argue that one should know only a single language.  I'm just
making an observation about the state of English in science today.

Mark A. Garland
Florida Department of Environmental Protection