Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec,sci.lang
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From: hinsenk@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA (Hinsen Konrad)
Subject: Re: Languages in the EC
In-Reply-To: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk's message of Sat, 11 Feb 1995 18:49:12 GMT
Message-ID: <HINSENK.95Feb13144112@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA>
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References: <3ha0n3INNmq5@SUNED.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU>
	<DUNCAN.95Feb9174429@lightning.eee.strath.ac.uk>
	<3he6ld$jf5@agate.berkeley.edu> <D3uMy4.A6A@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 19:41:12 GMT
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In article <D3uMy4.A6A@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:

   That was back in the Middle Ages, of course, before people had become
   aware of the advantages of having English as the single official
   language at international conferences.

I don't think this was ever "realized". What was realized is the advantage
of having only one language. This hasn't always been English. Before
the second world war, the international language of physics was
German, and even Americans had to learn it. That physicists nowadays
use English is due to political developments, not to any inherent
advantage of English as a language. And it is precisely in scientific
conferences that one can easily observe the disadvantage of using
a national language for international communication.
--
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