English and Global Science: Is the Past the Key to the Future?

It is widely acknowledged by linguists, historians of language, and by researchers themselves that English has become the global language of science.  This is an unprecedented historical development that may well have profound consequences for the future of scientific knowledge, practice, and institutions.  While some scholars of language maintain there is no way to predict what these consequences might be, the history of science offers a set of clues.  English is hardly the first lingua franca of science:  Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Chinese have all acted as international tongues over large regions during the past two millennia.  An examination of these episodes suggests certain large-scale patterns with regard to language use.  Some of these patterns, in fact, pose an interesting counter to conclusions by linguists writing today.  For example:  the continuation of Greek as the language of advanced science in the eastern Mediterranean throughout the Roman imperial period, and the use of Latin in Renaissance and early modern Europe, implies that centralized political and military power is not always needed for a lingua franca to remain vital, in general and in the sciences.  Another important conclusion, based on the history of Arabic and Chinese in the sciences, is that over time there develops a phenomena of diglossia.  In the case of science, diglossia has involved a split between oral and textual culture, with the former revealing a tendency to become localized due to interaction between the lingua franca and native tongues, while the latter resists such a degree of change in order to retain a strong degree of continuity with the past via standards of expression.  Such conclusions appear to have validity for explaining some of the evolving realities of global English in science today.