Can you help me with some good arguments to prove that English is the best language for scientific writings? (some hard-core scientific articles would be nice).
I'm from Slovakia. Few weeks ago I receive a response from my University which states that I am not allowed to write my "pre-dissertation" thesis in English. I have a plan to write an "open letter" to the University.
note:
I am fully aware that my English is not as perfect as of native speaker. But writing thesis in international language is a way how to easily train to write articles to scientific journals.
Best Answer
There used to be one language of science, a lingua franca, and it was Latin. However, the Protestant Reformation changed the power and influence of the Catholic Church and the use of Latin. Galileo and Newton both started writing papers in their common tongue, and eventually in the 19th century the three main languages of science were French, English and German.
German fell out of favour throughout the 20th century, as many of the big scientific organisations had been formed by the US, Britain, France and Belgium. French clung on a little longer, but in the 80s the French journals switched to all English too. In the Soviet Union, all papers were published in Russian and many never translated - this is actually still a problem today as many great papers in Theoretical Physics are still only available in Russian.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, then only English remained as the language of science. Chinese may come to challenge it in the future, though. The Slovak language? Probably less so..