In an opinion piece published on February 17 in The Press, two vice-rectors of the University of Montreal called on the Canadian government to “counter the decline of French in science”. In his letter open published in The duty from February 22the Bloc Québécois critic for Innovation and Science and MP, Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, lamented the “deaf agony of French in science”.
For more than a century, Acfas’ mission has been to promote scientific research throughout the Francophonie. More recently, the chief scientist of Quebec, Rémi Quirion, as well as the Quebec Research Funds (FRQ) have made great efforts to promote this subject… However, in the natural sciences, engineering and biomedical sciences, the language of publication is almost always English.
As a French speaker, I am sorry for the disappearance of French as an international scientific language. As head of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), a unique research and training establishment in Quebec, I must however point out that the proposed solution — encouraging the publication of our scientific articles in French — will have the effect inevitable to considerably reduce the influence of Quebec science on the international scene.
During the COVID-19 crisis, scientific articles in English made the headlines on several occasions. Very quickly, the validity of scientific results was discussed, debated, and even sometimes called into question, in the media and in the public arena.
However, such specialized texts that are difficult to decipher very often require the intervention of other scientists or specialists in the field to interpret them. Quite simply, because they are not intended for journalists and even less for the general public. They speak directly to scientists around the world.
For what ? Because publication is not an act on the fringes of science, it is at the very heart of scientific activity: the results of research must necessarily receive the critical assessment of peers, specialists in the field. They can be refuted or validated, which would give them more credibility. They can also provide an answer allowing another laboratory to advance further in its work. Publication is therefore essential to science and to the advancement of a scientific discipline. The condition is that it be read.
As Francophones, we can be sorry to see English take up all the space in scientific publication. But it’s not just Francophones in Canada that this affects. All scientists whose mother tongue is not English agree to publish their articles in English. Science has always needed a common international language. Latin has long played this role. The works of the Englishman Newton, the Italian Galileo and the Polish Copernicus were all published in Latin. Before the Second World War, German was used as the language of science. Since the 1950s, it must be recognized that American scientific journals have imposed themselves because of the massive investments in research in the United States.
It is therefore American English (and not that of the United Kingdom) which has gradually become the new lingua franca. For example, in 1989, The annals of the Institut Pasteuralthough founded in the 19the century, have become Research in Microbiology. The flagship journal of physics, Annalen der Physikwhich had published in German the articles which won the Nobel Prize for Albert Einstein, now only accepts manuscripts written in American English.
In such an international context, it is impossible to conclude that this is mainly a Canadian linguistic debate. Requiring Quebec scientists to publish their articles in French to promote French in Canada would only make them invisible to specialists around the world and prevent their contributions from being recognized, without having a significant impact on the erosion of the use of French in the streets of Montreal.
We are nevertheless right to be concerned about the decline of French in research, especially in the natural sciences, engineering and biomedical sciences. It is enough for us as scientists to try to talk about our field in French with those around us or journalists to see how difficult it is to do so without using English. As it is no longer used for scientific articles, French has ceased to evolve at the rate of our discoveries. The new concepts find English words to describe them, but no dedicated expression in French.
Students at our universities are increasingly required to read texts in English, while very few are destined for careers in scientific research. Taxpayers who have paid for this science can no longer hear about it, read it or learn it in their own language.
It is therefore imperative to find ways to develop scientific French. To this end, the FRQ and Francophone universities can play a role by further promoting the participation of their scientists in Francophone conferences such as the Acfas one. They could also promote the publication of large synthetic works, which would advantageously replace the compendia of course notes in university teaching. Finally, they could further promote the publication in French of works for the general public. These three solutions may not be sufficient, but they provide a starting point.
However, with regard to the publication of scientific articles in the natural sciences, engineering and biomedical sciences, we must accept that our scientists publish in the language devoted to the exchanges between nations and that this language is English… for the instant.