The Latest at Goethe

English has long outdistanced German in academia. Now, German academics want to save what they can; Ludwig M. Eichinger is one of them. The linguist interviewed below puts his main focus on multilingualism.

Mr Eichinger, should we converse in English?

For goodness sake, that would be a bit hasty. German is our native language, I think we should attempt to converse in it.

But in academia, our native language has lost a great deal of its importance. Only one percent of all publications in the natural sciences are printed in German. Even here, English has become the lingua franca. You advocate a return to German as an academic language. Why?

I wouldn’t call it a return. It’s not a matter of writing natural science publications in German again; that would be fatuous. Nowadays it is perfectly normal for a scientist to have good English skills. However, attention should be paid to choosing a language that suits the respective fields. Ultimately, science has to remain anchored in society. It should also be possible to make science comprehensible in a language like German.

German as an academic language – isn’t that a bit naïve though, when we see the reality of today’s academic world?

I don’t want German to replace English, but we ought to seek out a route to a new type of multilingualism. The natural sciences are about numbers and formulas, so it’s all right to communicate mainly in English there. The humanities are another matter, though. Linguistic wording is crucial in them, so we should use the German language. It’s also a question of equal treatment: It puts non-English-speaking academics at a disadvantage compared with native speakers of English.

What can German do that English cannot?

German, as other languages as well, participated in European modernization since the 16th and 17th centuries. Therefore, these languages have similar capabilities. But every language has its own traditions and its own academic history, so that we use the different languages for different purposes. This is particularly obvious in language-based fields such as philosophy: Philosophers will find it more difficult to write in a foreign language than, for example, mathematicians.

But then how does a Chinese philosopher communicate with a French philosopher?

English will inevitably remain the academic language for worldwide communications. But, within Europe, we should attempt to promote other languages as well; not only German, but also French, Italian and so forth. I was once asked to write a report in English about a project concerning German dialects. That seemed so inexpedient that I asked that they have it translated. No one will want to convert international magazines to German now. But there are fields that have two types of journals: a more application-oriented one and a theoretical one. If German were at least more involved in one of them, then academia would remain better anchored in society.

Yet, academics who publish their findings in English have greater chances of reaching their colleagues.

But this is also because the worldwide citation indexes that are now produced in the United States only list English-language journals. We need supplements to this – especially in the humanities.

Some people say that the language most spoken in academia isn’t English, but bad pidgin English.

There’s some truth to that. A foreign language limits a person’s modes of expression. And when courses are held in the English language in Germany by Germans who do not speak English very well, that naturally makes the lectures inferior.

What reasons could non-German academics have to learn German?

A few years ago at a presentation, I met an employee of the Japanese patent office. He told me he learned German because he always wanted to know right away what these Swabian gadgeteers are inventing. If great results were published in German that would be an incentive, but if you have to write in English anyway to get into the important journals that is undermined.

So, what are your actual plans?

Various kinds of higher education initiatives are possible. But first we have to clearly decide when English is best and when German is best. In addition, government needs to be motivated to spend money on translations. More German textbooks need to be translated in English and vice versa, too, so that knowledge is accessible in both languages.

Ultimately, do we need a transnational language for academia – like an academic Esperanto?

No, that could never be done. Also, Esperanto was created on a European basis; that would put non-Europeans at just as much a disadvantage as English.

Aloña Elizalde held the interview.