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I think I am more in agreement with Ahiakpor than I may seem to him to be. 
 
I do not want to make a "humanist" or "anti-math" argument. I do not think 
the problem is only English; it may arise from knowing only one language 
whatever it is. I do not imagine that the learned Keynes made his mistakes 
on interest because of a (foreign) language problem. But I suspect that 
Boehm-Bawerk and before him Menger may have misconceived classical ideas of 
capital because they translated English literally (in their minds) into 
German; this suspicion would also apply to economists who, able to read 
only English, think B-B and CM (in English translation) mean capital in an 
"English" sense. For a fully developed argument on a similar question, see 
Richard Biernacki, The Fabrication of Labor: Germany and Britain, 1640-1914 
(Berkeley, 1995).  
 
I agree one must take care in reading work in one's own language. I 
maintain, however, that knowing other languages can help one understand the 
peculiarities and unique meanings in one's own language. For a functioning 
modern economist say 30 years old or more, unconcerned with history, and 
unlikely ever to be so concerned, I can see no professional need for 
anything but English and math. Good for Economics departments for saving 
their graduates the expense of learning a (for them) useless skill. 
Nevertheless, the more of any other language any economist knows, the more 
capable he or she will be of detecting otherwise hidden or latent 
distinctions between concepts similarly expressed in both languages, and so 
analyzing them, which is a considerable advantage in doing history, 
especially of ideas.  
 
Whatever Economics does, I believe History departments ought to require 
more languages for graduate students than they do, plus calculus, in which 
I believe someone (not I, who have now forgotten mine) could even express 
the previous 
sentence. 
 
John Womack  
 
 
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