Is mastering language linked to scientific creativity?

Abstract

When the brilliant young Frenchman Laurent Lafforgue was hosted at the end of August 2002 to deliver a keynote lecture in Algeria at the International Congress of Mathematicians in front of four thousand researchers from all over the world – who filled the massive People's Hall in the Chinese capital – he did not deliver his speech in English in both voice and text as was the case with all the other speakers. Instead, he simultaneously displayed transparencies on overhead projectors containing the text of his lecture in both French and Chinese while addressing the audience in English (despite it being the imposed language for all attendees).