The Common Language of Science
Essay by Albert Einstein

The First Step towards language was to link acoustically or otherwise commutable signs to sense-impressions. Most likely all sociable animals have arrived at this primitive kind of communication�at least to a certain degree. A higher development is reached when further signs are introduced and understood which establish relations between those other signs designating sense-impressions. At this stage it is already possible to report somewhat complex series of impressions; we can say that language has come to existence. If language is to lead at all to understanding, there must be rules concerning the relations between the signs on the one hand and on the other hand there must be a stable correspondence between sings and impressions. In their childhood individuals connected by the same language grasp these rules and relations mainly by intuition. When man becomes conscious of the rules concerning the relations between sings the so-called grammar of language is established.
In an early stage the words may correspond directly to impressions. At a later stage this direct connection is lost insofar as some words convey relations to perceptions only if used in connection with other words (for instance such words as: �is,� �or,� �thing�). Then word-groups rather than single words refer to perceptions. When language becomes thus partially independent from the background of impressions a greater inner coherence is gained.
Only at this further development where frequent use is made of so-called abstract concepts, language becomes an instrument of reasoning in the true sense of the word. But it is also this development which turns language into a dangerous source of error and deception. Every-combinations correspond to the world of impressions.
What is it that brings about such an intimate connection between language and thinking? Is there no thinking without the use of language, namely in concepts and concept-combinations for which words need not necessarily come to mind? Has not everyone of us struggled for words although the connection between �things� was already clear?
We might be inclined to attribute to the act of thinking complete independence from language if the individual formed or were able to form his concepts without the verbal guidance of his environment. Yet most likely the mental shape of an individual, growing up under such conditions, would be very poor. Thus we may conclude that the mental development of the individual and his way of forming concepts depend to a high degree upon language. This makes us realize to what extent the same language means the same mentality. In this sense thinking and language are linked together.
What distinguishes the language of science from language as we ordinarily understand the word? How is it that scientific language is international? What science strives for is an utmost acuteness and clarity of concepts as regards their mutual relation and their correspondence to sensory data. As an illustration let us take the language of euclidian geometry and algebra. They manipulate with a small number of independently introduced concepts, respectively symbols, such as the integral number, the straight line, the point, as well as with signs which designate the fundamental operations, that is the connections between those fundamental concepts. This is the basis for the construction, respectively definition of all other statements and concepts. The connection between concepts and statements on the one hand and the sensory data on the other hand is established through acts of counting and measuring whose performance is sufficiently well determined.
The super-national character of scientific concepts and scientific language is due to the fact that they have been ser up by the best brains of all countries and all times. In solitude and yet in cooperative effort as regards the final effect they created the spiritual tools for the technical revolutions which have transformer the life of mankind in the last centuries. Their system of concepts have served as a guide in the bewildering chaos of perceptions so that we learned to grasp general truths from particular observations.
What hopes and fears does the scientific method imply for mankind? I do not think that this is the right way to put the question. Whatever this tool in the hand of man will produce depends entirely on the nature of the goals alive in this mankind. Once these goals exist, the scientific method furnished means to realize them. Yet is cannot furnish the very goals. The scientific method itself would not have led anywhere, it would not even have been born without a passionate striving for clear understanding.
Perfections of means and confusion of goals seem�in my opinion�to characterize our age. If we desire sincerely and passionately the safety, the welfare and the free development of the talents of all men, we shall not be in want of the means to approach such a state. Even if only a small part of mankind strives for such goals, their superiority will prove itself in the long run.

Albert Einstein
"The Theory of Relativity and Other Essays"
MJF Books
New York, NY

Ferdinand de Saussure "Course in General Linguistics" 1916

"Language is organized thought coupled with sound.

There are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language.

History affords many examples of famous people such as Leonardo de Vinci and
Albert Einstein who possessed cognitive flexibility. Behind each symbolic relation-
ship that these people understood were rich images that related actual experiences
with physical models, sketches and diagrams. Leonardo revered the visual and a
well-known quote of Einstein expresses a similar belief: �The words or the language,
as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of
thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are signs
and more or less clear images which can be voluntarily reproduced and combined ...
The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some muscular type.
Conventional words or other signs have to be sought laboriously only in a secondary
state, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and can be
reproduced at will.� Today we refer to visual and muscular (tactile-kinesthetic) ele-
ments of thought as nonverbal aspects of learning and �words or other signs� as
verbal. Connecting these two aspects fosters cognitive flexibility or what we refer to
as harmonic thinking. The history of mankind is steeped in the importance of
thinking harmonically and connecting the verbal and nonverbal. Many important
inventions and discoveries have been made due to this type of thinking.

I can well imagine a series of 'pictures' or images, but as soon as I begin to think, I am using language as an internal process, ie., I am talking without using my voicebox.
I cannot comprehend how I muight think without using this internal 'talk'.

The characteristic role of language with respect to thought is but to serve as a link (an articulation) between thought and sound.

Thought, chaotic by nature, has to become linear and ordered in the process of its decomposition.

Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of 'the others'.

If words stood for pre=existing concepts,they would all have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next, but this is not the case.

Distinctions of time, which are familiar to us, are unknown in certain languages. Hebrew does not recognize fundamental distinctions between the past, present and future.

The important thing in the word is not the sound alone but the phonic differences that make it possible to distinguish this word from all the 'others', for differences carry signification.

The common language of science

I can assure you that Pi means something different to me than it does to you, even though we may use it in the same way or agree that its numerical value is 3.14159... precisely because Pi conjures up different associations for me than it does for you, and thus it means something different to me than to you.

maybe in the sense that two drops of water are not the same. Or from the perspective of the atomic level, where matter is always in motion. We are all endowed with our own particular set of traits that makes us different from each other. And of course this makes us all unique in the way in which we perceive the world. But to claim that superior minds (geniouses, inventors, ect) are so because they see a richer meaning to standard symbols within a language may be a stretch.