Besomi is right about the problems of translation, quite right (as I can testify) about these problems in the history of thought and science, including "economics." It is odd, however, that all of a sudden we seem to have returned without a memory of it to a discussion that ended a couple of years ago, on language and economics. As I remember, most discussants then seemed to conclude, happily (at least for them), that since "English [I paraphrase] is now the language of economics around the world," that's the only language an economist need know, or that a historian of economics need know. I wonder what we will now (tentatively) conclude. I wonder too why in the Anglo world the professional history of ideas and intellectual history generally require reading skills in languages besides English, except--some would say--for the history of ideas in economics. I also wonder why the history of economics, if economics is a science, would require only English, if History of Science graduate programs have foreign language requirements (e.g., French and German). And I wonder what will be the effect on the economic thought of US-based economists, speaking and reading only English, when massive outsourcing of economics jobs starts to India, Pakistan, or (why not?) China, where if not already, then soon, there will be more English-speaking and -reading economists than in the "West," and working for much less. John Womack