Introduction

This introduction presents an overveiw of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides several essays that elucidate a different approach to the complex relationship between language and science. It addresses some of the discourses and contexts in which language itself has become a participant and taken on functional roles and how specific problems came to be viewed as problems of language or problems language should resolve. The book deals with the creation of scientific terminology through four case studies with different national backgrounds and linguistic combinations. It approaches from different perspectives the historically recurring issue of universal languages and their implication for scientific development. Josefina Rodriguez Arribas, who focuses on three twelfth-century treatises in Hebrew by Abraham ibn Ezra devoted to the description and explanation of astrolabes. Jan Surman traces the interrelations between science, language, and nationalism in nineteenth-century chemistry by focusing on the history of the term oxygene.