Standardization, Power, and Purity: Ideological Tensions in Language and Scientific Discourse

Abstract

Intellectual preferences often align with the broader concept of standardization. The centralizing tendency observed in the sciences mirrors the patterns seen in linguistic standardization, such as the establishment of standard dialects in diverse speech communities. In both cases, there is a deliberate disregard for the complexities of the “lower” systems within the hierarchy and an exaggerated belief in the purity of the dominant system. The process of language standardization involves minimizing linguistic variation, often leading to the marginalization of non-standard varieties and reinforcing social hierarchies by privileging certain forms of language, which can restrict access to opportunities and institutional authority. The hierarchical tendencies observed in both scientific disciplines and linguistic standardization reflect a broader intellectual preference for centralized, “pure” systems, often at the expense of diversity and complexity. This paper explores the relationship between linguistic and scientific standardization, highlighting their influence on knowledge, authority, and social structures. Focusing on the global use of Greco-Latin scientific terminology, it examines both the practical advantages and cultural implications of standardized scientific language. While proponents emphasize its unifying role, critics argue it threatens linguistic purity and cultural identity. Through historical and contemporary debates, the paper argues that standardization serves as both a tool for communication and a contested space reflecting ideological tensions about language, culture, and knowledge. Topics include the politics of language standardization, the globalization of scientific vocabulary, debates on the interlingual lexicon, and the conflict between global communication and Arabic language preservation.

1. Introduction

Traditionally, linguists have sometimes privileged those aspects of language—such as regular phonemic or syntactic patterns—that may be quantified, formalized, and reduced to tidy algebraic rules. The “big names” of our profession have stated this preference explicitly. For example, the structuralist De Saussure (1916) made a distinction between langue (the abstract system) and parole (the individual speech act) in which the former was the intended subject of interest:

La langue, distincte de la parole, est un objet qu’on peut étudier séparément. Nous ne parlons plus les langues mortes, mais nous pouvons fort bien nous assimiler leur organisme linguistique. Non seulement la science de la langue peut se passer des autres éléments du langage, mais elle n’est possible que si ces autres éléments n’y sont pas mêlés.

La langue est un système de signes exprimant des idées, et par là, comparable à l’écriture, à l’alphabet des sourdsmuets, aux rites symboliques, aux formes de politesse, aux signaux militaires, etc., etc. Elle est seulement le plus important de ces systèmes.

(pp. 31, 33) [emphasis mine]

When generative linguists have aimed for a centralizing theory to describe all languages, they make a similar hierarchical distinction that privileges linguistic competence over the performance that clutters real-world speech acts. Chomsky (1965) explicitly delimited the field to include only the “ideal speaker-listener”, since the diverse speech patterns of actual speakers are “grammatically irrelevant”:

Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its (the speech community’s) language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of this language in actual performance.

(p. 3)

Obviously, de Saussure and Chomsky do not define the field of linguistics in its current state, but their point of view is indicative of a broader limitation in the preferences and priorities of so-called Western science. There is a tendency to behave like the drunk who searched for his keys under the streetlight—not because he had lost them there, but because that is where it was easiest to see. In this analogy, proximity to the light represents the “purity” of a science, while the darkness represents complexities that may inhibit the construction of elegant mathematical models. Our tacit preference for such models colors the way we think about and evaluate the validity of different approaches to studying nature and society, between subjects and within them.

In this paper, I consider how our intellectual preferences may apply within a broad concept of standardization. The scientific preference for standardization appears to follow the same patterns we observe in language, as when standard dialects are established in heterogenous speech communities. In each case, there is a careful ignorance of the complexities of the “lower” systems of the hierarchy and an overestimation of the purity of the privileged system. The process of language standardization, as discussed by Curzan et al. (2023), Ayres-Bennett (2021), and Milroy and Milroy (2012), involves minimizing linguistic variation, often leading to the marginalization of non-standard varieties and reinforcing social hierarchies by privileging certain forms of language, which can restrict access to opportunities and institutional authority. The hierarchical tendencies observed in scientific disciplines and linguistic standardization reflect a broader intellectual preference for centralized, “pure” systems, often at the expense of diversity and complexity. This paper examines how linguistic and scientific standardization operate in tandem, shaping knowledge, institutional authority, and social structures, with significant consequences for communication and power dynamics. Focusing on the interlingual standardization of scientific terminology, particularly the widespread use of Greco-Latin vocabulary, the paper considers both its practical benefits and cultural implications within the global scientific community. While advocates highlight the unifying potential of a standardized scientific lexicon, critics view it as a threat to linguistic purity and cultural identity. Through an analysis of historical and contemporary debates on scientific language, this paper argues that the standardization process serves not only as a pragmatic tool for global communication but also as a contested space reflecting ideological tensions surrounding language, culture, and knowledge. This paper is organized into sections examining (1) the politics of language standardization, (2) the globalization of scientific vocabulary, (3) debates over the interlingual scientific lexicon, and 4) the tension between global scientific communication and Arabic preservation.

2. The Politics of Language Standardization

A standard language variety is a dialect with institutional support. The standard will tend to support institutional interests, and in fact several institutions may work together for this reason: governments, universities, language academies, religious groups, and businesses. Advocates of the standard often highlight the practical social benefits of standardization, such as facilitating communication across groups, promoting commerce, and increasing mutual intelligibility (Haugen, 1966). A standard language can also serve as a tool for social gatekeeping, reinforcing power structures by privileging those who have access to standardized forms while marginalizing speakers of non-standard varieties (Milroy & Milroy, 2012). Additionally, a standard may entail significant social costs if it is used to codify social attitudes, rationalize inequality, and facilitate the political dominance of the group who controls it. Standard English, which evolved from several sources (such as the Chancery Standard of London) during the late Middle English and early Modern English period, provides a characteristic example of dialect standardization. The standard originated at the highest levels of society, where it was used as an administrative language by the king and his secretariat (Nevalainen & Tieken-Boon van Ostade, 2006, p. 274). The more proximate source of the Chancery Standard was a version of English spoken in the prestigious East Midlands region and in particular the political power center of London:

[W]hat qualified this dialect as a possible standard was the fact that the area in which it was spoken was connected with all the domains of a High language: government and administrations, education and learning, and the church. In addition, it was used and understood by many speakers from a large, affluent area.

(p. 275)

The promotion of a linguistic standard came at the expense of other varieties of English—and more importantly at the expense of the speakers of those other varieties. Johnston (1992) notes how even linguists have tended to avoid non-central English dialects when constructing sound change theories such as the Great Vowel Shift. This bias toward the standard variety contributes to the perception that non-standard dialects are linguistically deficient rather than simply different, reinforcing social hierarchies and limiting the legitimacy of diverse linguistic identities (Lippi-Green, 2012).

Of course, even the standard dialect emerged from a context of intense linguistic mixing and disruption, a fact which challenges traditional narratives of linear linguistic development and calls attention to the ideological work done by later standardization efforts (for a summary of the debate on the Middle English Creolization Hypothesis, see O’Neil, 2019). In this view, the standard language not only elevates one dialect over others but also retroactively imposes a myth of continuity and coherence onto what was historically a site of contact, compromise, and innovation.

A modern example of the standardization process is the government sponsored “Speak Good English” movement in Singapore, which aims to replace Singapore English (Singlish) with an Anglo-American standard. When the movement was initiated in 2000, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong gave a speech describing all the potential benefits of Standard English in the areas of commerce, international relations, foreign investment, education, and entertainment:

The ability to speak good English is a distinct advantage in terms of doing business and communicating with the world. This is especially important for a hub city and an open economy like ours. If we speak a corrupted form of English that is not understood by others, we will lose a key competitive advantage. My concern is that if we continue to speak Singlish, it will over time become Singapore’s common language.

(Tong, 2000)

He also talked about the inferiority of non-standard dialects:

Poor English reflects badly on us and makes us seem less intelligent or competent. Investors will hesitate to come over if their managers or supervisors can only guess what our workers are saying. We will find it difficult to be an education and financial centre. Our TV programmes and films will find it hard to succeed in overseas markets because viewers overseas do not understand Singlish. All this will affect our aim to be a first-world economy.

(Tong, 2000)

There is an obvious social ideology behind Tong’s delineation of the practical benefits of Standard English and drawbacks of Singlish. He calls the standard dialect simply “good English”, while other forms are “corrupted” or “poor”. His assumption seems to be that there is a hierarchy among different ways of speaking and that this hierarchy reflects moral value as well as simple usage. Moreover, he misunderstands and trivializes the motivations of speakers of Singlish, particularly young people: “They should not take the attitude that Singlish is cool or feel that speaking Singlish makes them more ‘Singaporean.’” In Tong’s view, issues of cultural identity are no more important than the desire to be “cool”, and resistance to the state’s promotion of a standard is simply intransigence. In contrast, broader critiques of language standardization argue that the promotion of a “correct” or “proper” variety often serves as a means of social control, reinforcing power structures and marginalizing speakers of non-standard forms (Pennycook, 1994).

3. The Globalization of Scientific Vocabulary

The linguistic standardization inherent to the “Speak Good English” movement may be described as basically intralingual (“within a language”) because it is internal to the English-speaking community (see Bao & Wee, 1999, for cross-linguistic complications). However, standardization may also occur at the interlingual level (“between languages”), whether through the unifying effect of a bridge language (or lingua franca) or convergence among independent languages. In some cases, the focus of the convergence may be an institution that motivates parallel borrowings in a given semantic field (or fields). This kind of standard, which will feature largely in this paper, is the result of an institution’s requirement for a consistent vocabulary, and the standard emerges because there is no independent language to cross linguistic boundaries. The Catholic Church offers a suitable example of such an institution. Until quite recently, there was no need for an interlingual standard among Catholic countries because there was a formal institutional language: Latin. Priests could perform their duties using Latin, and so vernacular languages did not need to incorporate specialized “church” vocabulary. However, most priests today do not really know Latin beyond maybe a few simple prayers, so the consistent performance of Catholic traditions relies on training in the local vernacular. The rites, rituals, and accessories all have their own names, and they still need these names despite the decline of the institutional language (Waquet, 2001). Local Catholic language communities could have created their own ecclesiastical vocabulary from native roots, but instead (unsurprisingly) they have adapted church vocabulary from Latin, which has resulted in the creation of an interlingual Latinate religious lexicon. For example, all over the world the words for the vestments of Catholic clergy still conform to standard Latin roots, even though different phonological rules may create slight variations. In English, the belt worn around the priest’s waist is called a cincture, in German a zingulum, in Spanish and Portuguese a cingulo, in Italian a cíngolo, in Polish a cingulum, and in Dutch a cingel. The band of colored cloth worn around a priest’s neck is called in English a stole, in Breton a stol, in Indonesian a stola, in Slovenian a štola, and so on. This standardization, which is based in multiple parallel borrowings from Latin, greatly facilitates institutional communication, increases a feeling of unity among Catholics speaking different languages, and maintains the basis for centralized authority. This persists long after Latin ceased to be a serious force in the international Church.

The scientific standard under investigation in this paper is also interlingual. That is, it provides a central, shared vocabulary for semantic fields in several languages, even if some languages and some scientific terms are less standardized than others. For example, there is tacit international and interlingual agreement that the Greek coining biology should be the standard word for the science of life. The same is true of the standardized form of the word for the Latinate linguistics, although it is more likely than biology to serve side by side with a word based on native roots.

Table 1. International standardization in the words for “biology” and “linguistics”.

English	biology (first attested: 1686)	linguistics (first attested: 1840)
Afrikaans	biologie	linguistiek/aalwetenskap
Serbo-Croatian	biologija	lingvistika/jezikoslovlje
Asturian	bioloxía	llingüística
Azerbaijani	biologiya	linqvistika/dilçilik
German	biologie	linguistik/sprachwissenschaft
Polish	biologia	lingwistyka/językoznawstwo
Turkish	biyoloji/canlı bilimi	lengüistik/dilbilim
Indonesian	biologi	linguistik
Zeelandic	biologie	linguustiek/taelkunde
Fiji Hindi	biology/jiu vigyan	linguistics

shows the international standardization of words for “biology” and “linguistics” in languages from several different language families.

To look at one example, the German word for “biology” is biologie, while the word for “linguistics” may be either linguistik or sprachwissenschaft (“speech-science”), a typically Germanic compound. There are several possible explanations for the different levels of interlingual standardization of the words for biology and linguistics, which include the age of each science in each language community, the likelihood of finding a suitable native word, and the relative international prestige of each science. Notably, the interlingual standard remains a possible form even when there are competing forms. The consistent use of the standard Greco-Latin terms across several languages is evidence of powerful standardization in scientific terminology across language boundaries. Of course, today the role of English as a lingua franca of international publishing in the sciences raises further questions about standardization, linguistic diversity, and equity in knowledge production (O’Neil, 2018).

Much of the specialized academic vocabulary in Greek emerged from general sources. The noun µάθημα (mathema), which meant knowledge in the broad sense (deriving from µανθάνω (manthano), “to learn”), came to refer to the mathematical sciences, such as arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Another early Greek term for knowledge, σοφία (sophia), evolved from reference to general skill to skill in speculative pursuits, or philosophical wisdom. Two more commons words, λόγος (logos) and μῦθος (muthos), each meant “word”, “story”, or “account” in early Greek, but evolved in opposite directions as Greek culture began making a stricter distinction between historical (logical) and fictional (mythic) accounts of reality. Both words underwent a process of narrowing, with λόγος (logos) describing “true” stories and μῦθος (muthos) describing “false” stories. In the process, λόγος (logos) became a specialized suffix to denote a rational approach to a subject, as in ἀστρολογία (astrologia), the “study of the stars”.

Despite the debt owed to Egyptian and Near Eastern culture, the Greeks used their own vocabulary when they adapted or created new sciences, while later cultures often borrowed the Greek terminology. The Romans, for example, were notorious for their imitation of the Greeks in matters of culture and science, meriting Horace’s statement that Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit (“Captive Greece captured its rude conqueror”). Consequently, Latin academic vocabulary is dominated by words of Greek origin, and this vocabulary, combining the intellectual pedigree of classical Greek thought with the power of the Roman Empire and Church, became the basis for the interlingual standard that survives today. The terms for almost all scientific fields in modern science come from Greco-Latin sources, whether through direct borrowing or through the coining of new terms using classical roots. A few examples of English academic vocabulary from Greek sources include philosophy (first attested in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1325), logic (1362), astrology (1387), geography and physics (1487), mathematics (1545), and biology (1686); examples from Latin include discipline (1225), science (1340) doctrine (1382), and linguistics (1840).

4. Debates over the Interlingual Scientific Lexicon

Just as is the case for intralingual (or dialectic) standards, promoters of the interlingual scientific standard are often ebullient in their praise of its practical benefits. The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1959), who wrote an etymological dictionary of scientific terms, talks about Greco-Latin usage with an enthusiasm that recalls Prime Minister Tong’s description of Anglo-American Standard English in Singapore. In Asimov’s introduction to his dictionary, he mentions only one potential problem with standardization: that it is difficult to learn a substantial technical vocabulary based on a foreign language. Since “nationalistic” issues of cultural identity appear relatively insignificant to Asimov, the trade-offs are clearly worth it:

A large proportion of the various scientific terms are the same in Russian, for instance, as in English. This is certainly important since artificial barriers among the world’s scientists will certainly slow scientific advance, and if each nation had its own nationalistic scientific vocabulary, there would be a scientific barrier at every language barrier (Introduction).

There is a certain esprit de corps in Asimov’s international perspective on scientific progress. Science is understood as a universalizing world view that unites diverse cultural groups under one shared objective, in what might be considered the last stage of Peter Singer’s “expanding circle” of empathy (Singer 1982). Robert Wright’s Evolution of God traces the growth of this same circle (Wright 2009), showing how human altruism has evolved from concern for tribal groups towards participation in international communities. A truly universal scientific language, if it should ever exist, could be a powerful tool in reducing international conflict and promoting the kind of altruism discussed by Singer and Wright.

On the other side of the argument, some English speakers have felt the interlingual scientific standard encroaches on cultural values and threatens the purity of the native language. Others may fear that overuse of classical derivatives obscures clear, “Anglo-Saxon” expression. George Orwell, for example, had strong aesthetic and stylistic objections to the use of Greek and Latin borrowings, preferring the use of native English vocabulary whenever possible (Orwell 1946). His essay “Politics and the English Language” is brilliant, hilarious, and persuasive, but it is also disappointingly moralistic in its condemnation of the “barbarism”, “abuse”, “swindles”, and “perversion” of his contemporaries’ written English. For Orwell, the increasing use of standard Greco-Latin scientific vocabulary was driven by personal moral failings, such as snobbery and an “instinctive” drive for the speaker to sound smarter than his plain-spoken compatriots:

An interesting illustration of this is the way in which the English flower names which were in use till very recently are being ousted by Greek ones, Snapdragon becoming antirrhinum, forget-me-not becoming myosotis, etc. It is hard to see any practical reason for this change of fashion: it is probably due to an instinctive turning-away from the more homely word and a vague feeling that the Greek word is scientific.

It is perhaps unsurprising that an anti-authoritarian like Orwell should have rejected the bending of English towards an international standard, but there is an ironic authoritarianism in his own rigid valuations. Seen from this light, Orwell’s view is just as uncritical as Asimov’s, despite the two writers’ fundamental disagreement. Asimov sees scientific language merely in terms of its usefulness in furthering the cause of science, and Orwell sees it only in terms of injuring his preferred “English” manner of expression. Either way, thinking of an institutional standard in terms of “good” versus “bad” virtually guarantees a misunderstanding of who is using the standard, and why.

Orwell was not the only one to prefer English native vocabulary to the Greco-Latin interlingual standard. A century earlier, one recommendation for reducing the standardization of English scientific vocabulary was to reinstitute the Old English knowledge term lore. In Old English, lore referred to anything that was taught, whether a religious creed or a specific area of scientific knowledge such as animal lore, bird lore, fairy lore, or plant lore. This usage was in direct competition with Greco-Latin specialized terms, particularly those using the Greek suffix -logy. Although animal lore means the same thing as zoology, and plant lore means the same thing as botany, the Germanic forms have essentially disappeared in Present Day English. The Oxford English Dictionary (online version) describes a published recommendation for reinstating the traditional English morphemes:

In the Gentl. Mag. for June, 1830, p. 503, a correspondent suggested that English compounds of lore should be substituted for the names of sciences in -ology: e.g., birdlore for ornithology, earthlore for geology, starlore for astronomy, etc. The suggestion was never adopted... In German, several compounds of the equivalent lehre are in regular use as names of sciences or departments of study: e.g., sprachlehre (=speech-lore) grammar. Cf. folklore n.

It would probably be taken as a joke if anyone were to suggest these substitutions today. In Present Day English, lore has an archaic feel that seems best suited for compounds like folklore, since much of folklore consists of archaic fictional elements such as fairy tales and legends. However, it is significant that a correspondent at The Gentleman’s Magazine was concerned enough about English linguistic identity to suggest the elimination of the Greco-Latin morphemes. Even in specialized semantic fields, standardization is not a merely utilitarian process. There are interactions with perceptions of cultural identity.

5. The Tension Between Global Scientific Communication and Arabic Preservation

In the history of English, the adoption of foreign scientific vocabulary occurred early and had a significant impact on the language’s development. As scientific discourse expanded, terms from Latin and Greek became central to the English lexicon, particularly in fields like biology, medicine, and philosophy (Lippi-Green, 2012). This adoption was part of a broader trend where languages absorbed scientific terms from dominant intellectual traditions, allowing for greater communication across national boundaries. However, despite this linguistic integration, changes to the measurement system, such as the adoption of the metric system, have faced significant resistance in English-speaking countries (Norton, 2000). In contrast, Arabic-speaking communities have exhibited greater resistance to the incorporation of non-Arabic vocabulary across a broader range of scientific fields. The resistance to foreign terms in these communities is not just linguistic but also tied to cultural and political concerns, reflecting a desire to preserve Arabic’s status as a language of intellectual and religious authority (Haider, 2017). This tension between linguistic innovation and cultural preservation underscores how the adoption of scientific vocabulary is deeply intertwined with issues of identity, politics, and power dynamics in different linguistic communities.

Although Arabic-speaking communities were at the vanguard of discovery during the Islamic Golden Age, in the late twentieth-century the vocabulary necessary for full participation in several academic fields was lacking, so that students often rely on a foreign colonial language for scientific work and education. Abdul Sahib Mehdi Ali (1987), former head of the Department of Translation at al-Mustansiriyyah University in Baghdad, considered the modernization of Standard Arabic the key problem faced by Arabic language academies:

What may be rightly considered THE problem of present-day Arabic, is the considerable lack of scientific and technical terminology in most branches of science and technology—so much so that a large number of institutions of higher education in various Arab countries still resort to a foreign language (English or French) as a medium of instruction for science. This problem can be accounted for mainly in terms of the events and circumstances experienced by the Arab world up to the contemporary awakening, which some date as beginning not earlier than the second half of this century.

(p. 4) [emphasis in original]

Despite the deficiencies in vocabulary, the various Arabic language academies have resisted the incorporation of “excessive” foreign words (associated with Western science) into Standard Arabic. This resistance can be seen in the preponderance of traditional Arabic roots in Arabic scientific vocabulary, regardless of whether the science is of foreign or native origin.

Among the Arabic words in

Table 2. Standard Arabic terms for native and foreign sciences (Ali, 1987, p. 26).

Native Sciences		Foreign Sciences
al-fiqh	jurisprudence	al-falsafah	philosophy
at-tafsi:r	Quranic exegesis	at-tibb	medicine
al-hadi:t	prophetic tradition	al-handasah	geometry
al-kala:m	theology	al-falak	astronomy
al-baya:n	rhetoric	al-mu:si:qa:	music
an-nahw	grammar	al-ki:mya:?	chemistry
as-sarf	morphology	ar-riya:diyya:t	mathematics
al-?adab	belles-lettres	al-hiyal	mechanics
al-lugah	lexicography
al-quiya:s	analogy

, philosophy, music, and chemistry have a clear association with the terms used by Western scientists. (Significantly, the lexemes alchemy and chemistry, though ultimately Greek in origin, entered Western science through an Arabic-to-Latin translation in the 12th century.) Borrowing Western vocabulary might make it easier for Arabic-speaking scientists to join the global scientific community, facilitating communication and collaboration. However, efficiency in communication is not the only concern at play in the process of linguistic borrowing. Just as sociolinguistic factors may guide a community to prefer a “vernacular” over a standardized dialect, interlingual standardization of scientific terms also involves deep-seated issues of cultural identity, political autonomy, and self-esteem.

The adoption of foreign terms, particularly from Western languages like English, can be viewed as a form of cultural imposition, potentially undermining the intellectual and linguistic heritage of Arabic-speaking communities. According to Spolsky (2004), language is not merely a tool for communication but also a symbol of group identity and power. The decision to embrace or reject foreign scientific vocabulary reflects a community’s stance on preserving its cultural sovereignty, as well as its perception of its role within the broader global intellectual landscape. In the context of Arabic, this resistance to foreign terminology is particularly poignant because of the language’s historical and religious significance, especially as the language of the Qur’an and classical Islamic scholarship. The integration of foreign terms into Arabic scientific discourse can thus be seen as a threat to the purity and sanctity of the language (Ferguson, 1996). Furthermore, the debate around language and identity is often tied to broader geopolitical factors. For instance, some scholars argue that the adoption of English scientific vocabulary is symbolic of the dominance of Western powers and their cultural and intellectual hegemony (Kachru, 1985). This dynamic raises questions about whether the global scientific community’s standardization efforts unintentionally reinforce power imbalances that have long been entrenched in the post-colonial world. As a result, for Arabic-speaking scholars, the choice between adopting a standardized scientific lexicon and preserving their native linguistic terms is fraught with both practical and ideological consequences.

The debate described by Ali can be divided into two preferences for how to create new scientific terminology: (1) borrow the international scientific terminology and modify it to fit Arabic morphological patterns (a process known as at-Ta^cri:b, or “arabicization”), or (2) coin new words from native Arab roots. The values at stake in this choice can only be understood in the context of a three-part distinction in the “authenticity” of Arabic words. The first class of words, being native in origin, are called ʔasi:l. These are distinguished from the non-native daxi:l, which are further subdivided based on the date of their borrowing. The first division, mu^carraba:t, which are words borrowed during the Citation Periods (when Arabic was first codified), are treated as equal in prestige to the native ʔas:l because their usage is accepted as “classical”, “correct”, and “eloquent”. Words of the second subdivision, muwallada:t, are considered less prestigious because they were borrowed later and were not a part of classical Arabic. According to Ali, the early borrowings more closely conform with the internal structure of Arabic, which explains their prestige: “[T]he main motive behind the distinction under discussion is to preserve the symmetry of the language and to check the overflow of new borrowings that might ultimately impair its character” (p. 97). However, Ali does admit that some speakers might still reject muwallada:t even if their morphological patterns were fully arabicized, since tradition determines “correctness”, not linguistic rules. Still others (a minority, it seems) accept borrowed vocabulary even when it does not fit classical patterns. Ali concludes

[T]here is a general tendency among Arab linguists to oppose the occurrence of non-native elements in their language or, when this inevitable, to subject them to a process of full adaptation. It is also true that this tendency stems from the fear that the occurrence of foreign words might lead to the disruption of the characteristic structure of the language. While granting the honourability of these motives, one should not be blindfolded against certain elements of unrealistic thinking easily discernable in the arguments put forward by some writers.

(p. 99)

Ali devotes considerable attention to coaxing the “purists” out of their anxieties about foreign borrowing. He explains, for example, that no language can be expected to express every idea perfectly, especially when the idea is foreign to the culture of the language’s speakers. A ka:zi:no:, for example, offers the Western pleasures of “alcohol, drinking, dancing, gambling, etc.” (p. 100), while native Arabic words are used for less sinful gathering places.

Of course, Arabic has made significant contributions of its own to the international scientific standard. Despite a justifiable perception of inequality, the borrowing of Western scientific vocabulary into Arabic would not be a one-way exchange and should not be considered as one. Arabic’s contributions to the standard include mathematical terms like algebra, average, and zero that have been adopted by languages throughout the world.

Table 3. The Arab borrowing algebra in several languages.

English	algebra
Danish	algebra
Spanish	álgebra
Hungarian	algebra
Galician	álxebra
Yoruba	áljẹ́brà
Greek	άλγεβρα

shows parallel borrowings of the word for algebra in a random sampling of languages.

Nevertheless, it is true that Greek and Latin dominate the international standard, and if these languages are considered markers of Western identity there will be understandable objections to its full adoption. Non-Western nations (or entire civilizations, as in the case of the Islamic world) may perceive the introduction of a non-native scientific lexicon as a kind of foreign usurpation. After all, sociolinguistic principles impact interlingual standardization just as well as standardization at the level of dialects. The question of how Arabic-speaking scientists are to join the international scientific community—without compromising the integrity of Arabic—clearly involves deeper cultural issues than are admitted in the arguments of enthusiasts of standardization.

Roman Jakobson (1960) argued in “Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics” that the traditional linguist’s focus on the formal rules of a language, chiefly its phonology and syntax, was unnecessarily reductive, in fact, a reductio ad absurdum (p. 353). Jakobson’s intent was to open the field to a study of poetics and literary studies, despite the traditional exclusion of these subjects. Linguista sum; linguistici nihil a me alienum puto (“I am a linguist; I believe nothing in linguistics should be unfamiliar to me”), he said in Latin, alluding to the Roman playwright Terence’s assertion of the value of generalism in human endeavor. This “closing statement” about the prerogatives of linguistics is in clear opposition to the views of Saussure and Chomsky quoted in the introduction. In Jakobson’s opinion, all elements of language are fair game, not just the idealized systems favored by systematizers who define science by how closely it imitates mathematics.

A key element of sociolinguistic analysis is understanding how the forces of history, society, and power shape the development and perception of language varieties, particularly in relation to standardization. Most linguists today are likely to accept Jakobson’s goal of broadening the purview of linguistics. In addition to research on imaginative literature, we study speech acts in their context and as social events governed by complex interactions of belief, social class, politics, and cultural identification. Sociolinguistics places the study of language into a broader investigation of the forces of history and society, and nowhere is this more evident than in the study of standardization. Rodby (1992) describes a model of standardization that explicitly relies on the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in historical progress. This model is based on the ideas of the Soviet linguist M. M. Bakhtin, whose dialectical approach to linguistic problems helped Rodby “escape the conceptual tether” (p. 179) of Saussure and Chomsky. In this model, heteroglossia, which describes the existence of several varieties (or dialects) within the same language, develops from the “collision” (p. 180) of centripetal and centrifugal forces. Although this view ignores that there may be multiple centers of sociolinguistic tension, it accurately describes the complexity of the issues discussed in this paper, such as the current debate among Arabic-speaking scientists.

The influence of standard dialects on the development of linguistic theories is a recurring theme in sociolinguistic research, highlighting how focusing on the “standard” often obscures linguistic diversity. In his study of the English Great Vowel Shift, Johnston (1992) notes that an overemphasis on standard dialects led to the false conclusion that the shift involved a single unified chain shift. Using data from non-standard dialects, he argues for a division into two smaller shifts. In his opinion, an over-reliance on data from the standard dialect allowed theoretical neatness but came at the price of reduced accuracy. Further, it created the illusion that there was less diversity in the English language than was the case:

By splitting up the chains [of the Great Vowel Shift], the whole range of English dialects can be covered, not just mainstream ones or the most prestigious one. This in fact is good in and of itself: by restricting coverage to such dialects alone, especially if the aim is to make general statements about English, linguists risk perpetuating the ethnocentric and parochial myth that only certain varieties (especially those closest to the Standard) are worth talking about and risk building theories, based on an inadequate data base, that give the lie to statements of universality and suggest that English varieties are more related to each other than they in fact are.

(pp. 218–219)

Johnson makes an important point that a focus on standard dialects may perpetuate bias and discrimination, while also distorting our theoretical models. If there is any justification at all for ignoring non-standard forms (which we will all sometimes do) it is in the practicality of teaching a simplified system. A simple model, after all, is much easier to understand.

6. Conclusions

This desire for simple elegance in our theories is part of the allure of standardization. Purity and neatness are comfortable, and so we tend to favor them, a fact that can be observed not only in hierarchies of scientific knowledge but also in the historic attitudes of the Western intellectual tradition. The pre-Socratics were interested in finding an element that might underlie all matter, and we continue to search for a unifying “theory of everything” and a universal scientific language with which to describe it. This drive for simplicity is not just limited to science but extends to the ways in which we view language and knowledge, where we tend to elevate certain forms or systems as more “pure” or “correct” than others. In linguistic standardization, for example, the desire for a uniform system often leads to the marginalization of dialects or non-standard languages, as seen in the dominance of English in scientific and academic discourse (Lippi-Green, 2012). The preference for neatness, however, has consequences. As Rodby (1992) explains in her theory of linguistic standardization, we are governed by the centripetal and centrifugal forces that push against the simplicity of uniform systems, highlighting the inherent complexities and tensions that emerge when systems are oversimplified. Just as we systematize facts in simplified models, these models must be discarded when new data or perspectives emerge. This process mirrors what happens in the social sciences as well, where simplifications often mask complex cultural, political, and linguistic dynamics. We often find ourselves in a continuous dialectical process of invention and retraction, where our understandings are constantly refined and revised. As Einstein said in 1936, “the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility” (qtd. in Miller, 1984, p. 219). Thus, while the pursuit of clarity and simplicity in theory is a natural inclination, it is crucial to remain open to the messy, complex realities that these theories must account for. The challenge lies not only in developing standardized systems but also in recognizing the importance of diversity and complexity in both language and science. Acknowledging these complexities enriches our understanding of the world and allows for more inclusive and representative theories.