ABSTRACT
Over time the language of science evolved toward what it is today: impersonal and bristling with technical terms. Clause by clause, its structure is simple; within clauses, it is complex. Equations are incorporated as are graphs and a variety of visuals. Meaning is created by the interaction of these very different meaning-saturated modalities. While Latin was the universal language of science in the Middle Ages, in the seventeenth century national languages took over. German became dominant because German science was consistently world-class. After World War II, however, American science achieved uncontested dominance. Now while all scientists still think in their native language, virtually all publish in a deracinated English, the Latin of the twenty-first century. The author describes the evolution of scientific language to its current state featuring denotative precision (often in noun strings), impersonality, quantification, and condensed expressions. The current dominance of English as the language of science also accompanies the prevalence of mathematical and graphical symbolism to carry meaning. All these distinctive features of the language of science have to be reversed when science is translated for wider audiences.
