Another multilingual community, the Society for Neuroscience, held its annual meeting last November. Over thirty thousand neuroscientists from all over the world attended this five-day collection of lectures, poster presentations and special-interest socials. Most official meeting activities are conducted in English, but a stroll through the convention center’s halls during breaks would, without fail, allow an attendee to hear an astounding variety of languages being spoken among his or her fellow Society members. There’s no guarantee that any two attendees would be able to communicate effortlessly about the weather, the lunch menu, or the accommodations at the local hotels. However, the proverbial math changes when attendees gather to hear a scientific lecture or huddle together to examine a presenter’s poster. As they read or listen to and critically evaluate the presented information, this motley group of individuals from every corner of the world all understand.

They understand because they all speak the language of science.

In this issue of Revisions, some forms of communication not traditionally thought of as “language” have been considered. Mathematical equations, for example, generally represent relations among physical objects or forces that could also be expressed in words (see “The Language of Mathematics,” this issue). This fact, the bane of many self-proclaimed “left brained” students, also has the fortunate consequence of articulating with equal clarity mathematical relations to those who speak different languages.

In addition to using mathematics, science also frequently uses statistics to objectively test assumptions and express research results. For example, the statement “t (20) = 5.01, p < 0.001” conveys a wealth of information about the results of an experiment, including the statistical analysis used and the probability that the results reflect a treatment effect, without the need for words. This statement indicates that the difference between treatment groups on some outcome measured in this experiment is substantially more likely due to the effect of the treatment than to chance alone. Thanks to the universal nature of statistics and its symbolic representations, scientists from a variety of countries and spoken languages would undoubtedly recognize this result.

Equally comprehensible and not dependent on written language are graphic representations of scientific data. Given an understanding of the principles underlying the data being presented and perhaps only a handful of words, a scientist who speaks most any language can grasp research findings represented by a graph or other similar visual display of data. A graph with a tall bar representing the average sleep quality of participants who received an experimental drug and a short bar representing that of participants who received a placebo can demonstrate with almost pictorial universality the benefit of the drug for participants’ quality of sleep, just as color change on a topographic map of the human cornea represents reduced corneal curvature that will provide a test patient with better post-operative vision.

Scientists who speak diverse languages are also brought together through the common use of terms that originate from a variety of languages and have found their way into the lexicon of the multilingual scientific community. The term vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, which refers to a protein involved in blood vessel formation in the mammalian nervous system, is known to interested scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, as is umami, the term for a distinct food flavor made possible by specific chemical receptors in the human tongue discovered by Japanese researchers.

Science has developed and made use of forms of communication not completely reliant on written or spoken language. This has helped to foster a common understanding among individuals from a variety of linguistic backgrounds, which itself has allowed terms originating in one language to permeate numerous others. The result is a language of science that transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries, one that should be impressed upon students of science as not only an intriguing fact but also as a motivator for them to discover and find their place in this multilingual community.

Nevertheless, a common spoken or written language is often helpful and sometimes vital for two scientists to truly appreciate the nuances and complexities of each other’s work. At the very least, though, the mathematics, visual representations, and terms that constitute the language of science can be a springboard for effective communication between individuals of different linguistic backgrounds via the use of traditional written or spoken language.