The English Barrier

The follow thoughts are based on thoughts thought about during this talk by Patricia Ryan, Don't Insist on English!.

It's a scary thought that in 90 years we'd be down from 6000 to 600 languages and that a language dies every 14 days. Language is a beautiful thing. It gives us a common medium for us to connect with one another. Inherently in this problem is that if there's so many people in the world and only a few know that language, it becomes unwieldy and inefficient to know that language because there's so few that you can communicate with.

But when you do meet that person, how wondrous it can be. Just within the 'Chinese' language, there's a multitude of dialects that can distinguish from which region each person is from. It's certainly one aspect that one can use to relate to their home, recalling their memories of days gone by. Just hearing my dad communicate with his sisters using 潮州話 (Chaozhou dialect) is pretty intense. There's a sense of familiarity and togetherness in the way they speak, even if it's over the phone. It's a shame that I only know a few terms from this dialect (mainly only what I remember from my Grandmother saying my name, time to eat, and bathing... obviously the only things important to the younger me...).

Ryan's idea about language being a barrier and the self-fulfilling prophecy of research is also a neat notion. I've never really though about language being that big of a deal, but taking a step back... how can't it be? My parents are intelligent people, but their lack of English proficiency prevents them from ever rising up. I know of many people that have so many incredible ideas, only that they are unable to communicate it in a language that others will accept. It''s frustrating. (It's also frustrating because I get stuck with all the help center calls and whatnot, but that's a different story altogether).

Yet at the same time, I can't help but feel that part of this is sort of... necessary. Cruel perhaps, but required. Or perhaps it is rather just the notion of efficiency. The number of papers being pumped out every year is extraordinary. Now multiply that by the number of 'major' languages out there... and you can see how easily it can get out of hand. The notion of the common ground is found here too in that if we do not use the same language, how can we be sure that we're not talking about something that is completely unrelated?

But of course, science is in itself a language. Our professors can look at a chain of amino acids and know exactly what kinds of motifs to expect, what types of folding occurs, the functions of sequences... which still completely baffles me. Computer sciences need only look at 1's and 0's. Math sciences and physicists need only examine variables and equations.

... I wish I knew more languages.

In other news...

Studying. Lots of it.

Procrastinating. Too much of it.

Unhealthy food? Saturated.