Like Latin in the European Middle Ages, English has become the language of science.
It’s great, in many respects, that scientists are all publishing in the same language, because it makes it easier for them to share their research and join efforts. But there are problems, too, because – for obvious reasons – mother tongue speakers of science find it easier to write papers in accurate language.
Editors of science journals and other vehicles for published science research sometimes reject papers not because there’s anything wrong with the research, but because the standard of the language is not up to mother tongue standards – it may well have been written by someone for whom English is not even a second language, but a third, fourth or fifth. Inevitably, this sometimes results in research that should be published not getting seen and, sometimes, to avenues of promotion being blocked for talented scientists who are not talented at languages.
Translation can offer a work-around to this situation, with scientists writing in their mother tongues and hiring translators with appropriate skillsets to translate their work – and that’s what many do, but of course this adds cost to the process of making information public.
What’s the solution? Perhaps scientific journals could invest more in editing and translation to allow for a wider range of work to be made accessible to the science community, and the wider world.
And of course, 101translations is always here to help.
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