Popularity of languages

**sean** · 07-12-2002

Here's the situation, and I'll apologize right now because I have a tendency to write a lot, even though I consider myself to be quite brief... there I go already. After High School and serving a mission for my church and everything, I'd like to go to BYU (Utah) and eventually get a BS (the degree, not the big pile of doo-doo), a masters, and a PhD in Mathematics. I was at their post-graduate studies web-site today, and saw an interesting requirement. I'd have to learn 2 of the following: Italian, French, German, Russian. (Ialso figure that this placed next to 5 years of Spanish on a resumé, would look really good). I plan on actually learning all four of them, don't ask why, I don't know why I do half the things I do, but I think I should learn them in a certain sequence, so that I'm more likely to have the important ones done first, as the reason for this requirement is that these are the most common languages in the mathematical world. I've decided to definitely do French first, as French was almost what English is today, and it's considered to be some long name... like the second language of the Baccalaureate Society or something.... I don't know - but I'm doing that first, and I want your opionon on the others. Which one do you consider to be the most used (in Mathematics) of these three?

**Dissata** · 07-12-2002

umm. mathematics are a universal language. there are some greek symbols used though. . .

french used to be the diplomatic language of europe.

the other three are just were, in the past, the greater mathmatition's(sp?) language

**Dissata** · 07-12-2002

okay the last part of my post made no sense.

heres an example, you go to school where ever. you get you phd. your working for whoever, and you need to team up with some of the worlds greatest math minds. they were, in the past italian, german, russian, and english speaking, with french being the former diplomatic language of europe, so kind of a I don't understand your language but a I know french, so we can still comunicate deal.

**fyodor** · 07-13-2002

Oh no...Another poor lost soul is going to BYU. It's not worth it. No matter what price you're getting. I sat in there in a few courses, and it is not the place you want to go when you're below 60. Social activities (read: parties with a lot of illegal substances, alcohol, and "unhibited" girls) are nonexistent. From what I can tell, BYU is worse than Harvey Mudd, and Mudd is a place where pocket protectors reign supreme (j/k). Who knows, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a crazy party scene, hidden from outsiders by wild mormons.

they were, in the past italian, german, russian, and english speaking,

Italian and Russian? There were many more brilliant French mathematicians than Italian or Russian, or even English for that matter. Apparently you have never come across the names Laplace, Lagrange, Cauchy, Descartes, Pascal, Galois, Fourier, etc in your mathematical studies? Poincare? I'd say it would be a close call between France and Germany in the mathematics department. Possibly even Hungary.

**Shiro** · 07-13-2002

At university, most of my math books were in English and a few in German. Probably because most people in the Netherlands master those languages very well. France is the country of Europe's most famous mathematicians whose math we still use, Fyodor summed up some of them.

I don't think there is a natural language which is typical for mathematicians since a lot of countries contributed to mathematics. English is the language which most people in Europe use to communicate with people from other countries, but one of Europe's greatest mathematicians is from Hungary, Paul Erdos. Also outside Europe there were great mathematicians, just think about the mathematicians from India, for example Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Most papers, also from Russians, German and Italian, are written in English and communications is also done a lot in English. So I think, you should choose the language which interests you most.

**DavidP** · 07-13-2002

Social activities (read: parties with a lot of illegal substances, alcohol, and "unhibited" girls) are nonexistent. From what I can tell, BYU is worse than Harvey Mudd, and Mudd is a place where pocket protectors reign supreme (j/k). Who knows, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a crazy party scene, hidden from outsiders by wild mormons.

Hey! dont insult us Mormons. I am a Mormon too, and I am going to go to BYU when I graduate. BYU is an awesome school. So there is not any beer and naked chics are partie...who cares...that stuff doesnt make u happy in life. BYU is an excellent school with excellent professors and several fun activities to do. I have been there several times and I love the environment there. It is one of the best places I have ever been to. So dont even go around insultin mormons around here boy...

**fyodor** · 07-13-2002

but one of Europe's greatest mathematicians is from Hungary, Paul Erdos

Not to mention one of the fathers of CS, John Von Neumann. Did you read that book about Erdos, "The man who loved only numbers?" I would have liked to hear him lecture once. All the great mathematicians are dying off. Today, math is too specialized. In the last 80 years or so, there has been such an explosion that no single guy can be a "universal genius." There hasnt been someone who can understand it all (or most of it) since the turn of the century.

**Shiro** · 07-14-2002

>Not to mention one of the fathers of CS, John Von Neumann.

And Norbert Wiener, an American mathematician, who also contributed a lot to information. He could read when he was three and before he got ten, he read about physics, chemistry and was taught algebra, geometry and latin by his father.

http://www.digitalcentury.com/encycl...te/wiener.html

>Did you read that book about Erdos, "The man who loved only
numbers?"

Yes, it's a wonderful book.

>All the great mathematicians are dying off. Today, math is too >specialized.

That doesn't mean that there aren't great mathematicians today, they're just highly specialized, they are great in their field of mathematics. I've read some other biographies, one of them was about Leonhard Euler, a Swiss, an amazing man. He wrote about almost all mathematical, physical and technical topics. He has also written an article about music theory. Today it is impossible to be an universal scientist like he was. Even when he got blind, he went on publishing by telling the oldest of his children what to write.

**nvoigt** · 07-14-2002

Italian

really good for getting girls

Russian

nice if you hire foreigners, after all half of europe and all of the soviet union had to learn russian as their first foreign language.

German

want to sound like a square jawed robot ? Want to read philosophy or poetry ? Then it's a must.

"The Frenchmen and Russians possess the land,
The British possess the sea,
But we have over the airy realm of dreams
Command indisputably."

-Heinrich Heine

"While we Germans torment ourselves with solving philosophical questions, the English with their practical intelligence laugh at us and conquer the world."

-Goethe

However, for math I guess any language will do, as math definitions are pretty straight and aren't that much hindered by translational faults.

**fyodor** · 07-14-2002

Italian
really good for getting girls

So is French. Over my last five years in French (7th-11th), if you add the size of each class together, out of some 150 people, there have been exactly 14 guys.

"While we Germans torment ourselves with solving philosophical questions, the English with their practical intelligence laugh at us and conquer the world."

Except they don't solve the philosophical questions. They just write really long books about them

Seriously, though, my dad studied philosophy in college and he said that he knew some German students that were forced to learn English by their philosophy teacher in Germany so they could read the English translations of German authors.

Russian

nice if you hire foreigners, after all half of europe and all of the soviet union had to learn russian as their first foreign language.

For some reason, I doubt that the Ukrainians are exactly eager to speak Russian. Maybe something having to do with planned famines.

**Fyodorox** · 07-14-2002

First of all....don't confuse me with Fyodor. No offense to him, but what a strange similarity in names...

Anyway, as a "former" Mormon who did serve a mission, I respect your ability to commit to 2 years of your life to serving God in a way that you believe to be right. Bravo!

As for languages, I have been in Europe a few times and my wife is European. The universal language of Europe is German. Although most Europeans speak English, they learn German before that so this would be your most beneficial move.

**novacain** · 07-14-2002

>>So there is not any beer and naked chics are partie...who cares...that stuff doesnt make u happy in life.

Blasphemer!!

I won't make fun of your holy festivals if you don't make fun of mine.........

**sean** · 07-15-2002

Well fyodor, you have a good point there. There really are some wierdos out there. Why the heck would anyone not want to marry a slut? Why on Earth would anyone not want to go and get drunk, ruin their life, and then have wasted a bunch of money on college for nothing. Yeah - there's some real nuts out there... *cough* you *cough*

Well I'm learning French first regardless of the poll results because, like Dissata said, it was almost what English is today (Je parle Francais!), and then it's still a toss up between Italian and German (and there appears to be some speculation as to why they're making us do this - according to them it's because their are a ton of papers written in all sorts of different languages that need translating and stuff. It's just because those are the languages most mathematicians are coming from. I'm just surprized Spanish wasn't on there - it covers most of Central and South America and also part of Europe - Not to mention almost all of the Southwestern U.S.

Unregistered · 07-15-2002

I would suggest German as the next one. From what I noticed although there is some translation a majority of works from Germany is not translated. I.e. in europe Germany is the only one that I can see that forces translation into german for almost everything (all movies etc.) whilst other nations have subtitles. (for all movies except for harry potter though....) German also is a bit easier to learn than russian and italian (in my humble opinion).

**sean** · 07-15-2002

Well the translation I'd be doing would be Doctoral Theses and Paper on Mathematics. My family lived in South Africa for 17 years, so they all speak Aafrikaans, which is a cross between German and Dutch, but if you start speaking Aafrikaans is Germany they understand you - so maybe I'll be able to hear what the rest of my family is saying when I can't understand them! There's also the case for Italian - Italian would actually be easier for me to learn because there's several people I know who speak Italian and who have actually lived in Italy - so I'm still deciding between those. But Russian - I might actually leave that until College itself and take it as a class, because that'll definately be harder. It's a completely different alphabet, all 32 letters look like an h, and there won't be a whoel lot of cognates.

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