Sience

China and the lingua Franca of science

The word for ‘science’ in Chinese today is no longer ‘gézhì (格致),’ but the imported Japanese word ‘kēxué (科学)’. The switch reflects the “loss and shame” that followed the Chinese defeat in the Sino-Japanese War and heralds the attempt to forge a new Chinese identity, writes particle physicist Yangyang Cheng. Later, English became a language that begat both freedom and persecution for Chinese scientists. “Like the French syllables attached to polynomials and the German surnames associated with quantum mechanics, even when describing universal laws of nature, language carries the power of identity and association,” writes Cheng.

SupChina | 20 min read