President John F. Kennedy struck the right note when in 1963 he famously endorsed freedom by declaring “Ich bin ein Berliner”. But foraying into a foreign language carries its perils, confronted daily by many of the millions of scientists for whom English is not the mother tongue. The English lingua franca of science is often resented as Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism; a recent cartoon in a French newspaper summed up this sentiment portraying George W. Bush on his European voyage as “Ich bin ein Hamburger”.

Every language is rich, with unique and untranslatable treasures of vernacular and elegance. No surprise that the British royal family continues to express its motto “Honni soit qui mal y pense” in the language of Molière rather than the clumsy translation “Shame to him who thinks ill of it”. Or take Petits Débrouillards, a scheme to teach French children hands-on science. It could translate as 'little inventors' or even 'little smart-arses', but English cannot capture its sense of bricolage encapsulating simultaneously notions of backyard science, improvisation and invention.

Leaving aside its sometimes farcical attempts to prevent the anglicisms that are part of natural gene flow between languages, the Francophone world — 160 million people in 49 different countries — in particular deserves félicitations for its historic determination to preserve its language and culture. Is it now capitulating? Last month, Le Monde created une tempête by publishing a weekly supplement of articles from The New York Times and, s'il vous plaît, in English. This week, the Académie des Sciences decided that its Comptes Rendus would in future give “a preference” to articles in English (see page 581). But these moves are simply pragmatique. Le Monde rightly argues that its supplement gives readers a different perspective on world events, that the writings of The New York Times journalists are best expressed in their original language, and that over half its readers understand English. The academy is simply acknowledging la realité that using English is the only way to get read more widely.

Such lingual pragmatisme should not displace expressive and subtle discussion about science in native languages. But it needs to permeate all research organizations wishing to attract international talent. It is encouraging that many of Europe's young scientists now speak two or more languages. The British are the continent's laggards: over two-thirds speak pas un mot d'une langue étrangère. Irritatingly to non-Anglophones, UK and US scientists don't suffer for such philistinisme: the international spoken language of science is English, however broken.