[Foundation-l] The problem with native languages vs. the lingua franca

[Milos Rancic]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 12:38 PM, David Gerard<dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/world/asia/10iht-malay.html
>
> The Malaysian government has declared that science instruction will be
> conducted in Bahasa rather than English. Parents, teachers and
> professors are very unhappy because "English is the language of
> science."
>
> This sort of thing affects the quality of our projects in languages
> other than English.
>
> I'm not sure what to suggest, but it struck me as relevant to language
> issues we face.

Let's try with linguistics...

In slavistics is usual to write a paper in a native language +
abstract in Russian, English or a native language of publication.
Usually, all slavists know to read other Slavic languages.

But, if I am interested in description of phonemic system of Serbian
language, I am much more interested in cooperation with Japanese
linguists. If I am interested in distinction between alveo-palatal
consonants, i have more interests to cooperate with Hungarian and
Chinese linguists. If I am interested in well described synthetic
language to compare it with Serbian, I should work with classical
philologists specialized in Latin. And if I am willing to make any
kind of generalization of language characteristics, I am interested to
work with any linguist specialized in any language.

So, even a discipline with a lot of polyglots can't work without lingua franca.