[gajomi]

A very interesting discussion, I think, even if its promoting some strange ideas. But I don't think enough was done to explain the success of English as the dominant scientific language, as a basis for comparison. The subtext is that it is due to various geopolitical factors, which is likely not far from the truth. But I think one important feature of scientific English (I am a scientist, and so often write in this dialect) is the lexicon. I think the upper bounds on the number of words are around a million and a significant fraction (5 percent?) is used in science writing. Having this large pool of words, mostly co-opted from other languages, allows one to make precise technical statements in a simple way. This is not an elegant grammatical solution, as the author discusses in his analysis of Sanskrit. It is a practical solution. It is scalable inasmuch as scientific communication is specialized, so that I don't have to be familiar with the technical subset of the scientific lexicon outside my field. I feel as if the argument I am making here is not original, but I don't think I know the references. Any suggestions?

[mbq]

Agreed; it has just happened -- in a rapid idea-exchange environment science just works way better using a common language, regardless how hard or illogical it is; and English was on a right place and time (German and French used to have their chance, but they lost due to WW2).