French in the Siècle des Lumières: A Universal Language?

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, French extended its domain over the natural sciences at the expense of Latin, without entirely displacing it. Nor did it definitively supersede other vernaculars for scientific purposes. Scientific disputes and exchanges across language and geographical boundaries depended on a reservoir of overlapping language skills and translation strategies. These varied from case to case; this essay considers cases that illuminate the complex dynamics among languages, framed by the widespread use of French. Examples considered here show the complexity of the linguistic layering in eighteenth-century European science.

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