petersuberUpdate. "Many [non-native writers of English] cannot confidently judge whether their original expression is better than the AI's suggestion. Some do not even suspect that their original phrasing might carry nuance worth preserving…Thus, AI does not affect all writers equally. Native speakers tend to use AI to clarify their writing while preserving their voice. Non-native speakers often use AI in a fundamentally different way: their voice is replaced by a standardized, fluent, but impersonal tone. In many cases, they do not even notice that this has happened. This difference is unfair, yet largely invisible."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jep.70455
Update. For scholars with English as a second language, "#AI tools are described…not as shortcuts, but as equalizers. They reduce time-to-submission, lower financial burdens, and allow researchers to focus on ideas rather than articulation. For early-career scholars and those in resource-limited institutions, AI-based language assistance often replaces services that were previously inaccessible or prohibitively expensive. Yet they are not sure if the way they are using AI is permissible."
https://katinamagazine.org/content/article/open-knowledge/2026/will-ai-level-linguistic-playing-field-for-researchers
Update. #AI tools are mostly trained on #English language literature and reflect the cultural assumptions of that literature. When they deliver their results in another language, the translation masks the "epistemological persistence" of those assumptions.
Primary source:
https://www.academia.edu/150614492/Epistemological_Persistence_in_Multilingual_AI_The_Illusion_of_Locality_in_Large_Language_Models
Epistemological Persistence in Multilingual AI: The Illusion of Locality in Large Language Models
Large language models (LLMs) increasingly present themselves as multilingual and culturally responsive systems, creating the appearance of local understanding across linguistic contexts. This article argues that such linguistic fluency masks a deeper
Update. "Beginning February 11, 2026, #arXiv will require that all submissions have a full English-language version, either as the original language or as an included translation."
https://blog.arxiv.org/2025/11/21/upcoming-policy-change-to-non-english-language-paper-submissions/
Coverage of the new policy in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00229-0
Update. "For the 1990–2023 period, we find that only Indonesian, Portuguese, and Spanish have expanded at a faster pace than English [in academic publishing]… Social sciences and humanities are the least English-dominated fields… Policies recognizing the value of both national-language and English-language publications have had a concrete impact on the distribution of languages in the global field of scholarly communication."
https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.70055
Update. It's rare to see a journal editorial call for #MultilingualResearch. Here's one from _Applied and Environmental Microbiology_, published by the American Society of Microbiology.
https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.02229-25
Language barriers "do more than prevent access to opportunities. They cement unfair assumptions about scientific competence and preferentially amplify voices that are proficient, or perceived to be proficient, in the dominant language, shaping scientific discourse in narrow and exclusive ways. This editorial explores how linguistic bias sustains professional hierarchies and restricts scientific progress. It also highlights our journal’s initiatives to overcome language-based barriers in publishing and foster equitable participation in scientific exchange."
Update. New from #COAR (@coar_repositories): "This paper explores the concept of #semantic #multilingual #search: an emerging approach that retrieves information by meaning rather than by exact wording, enabling users to search in any supported language and discover relevant work across all languages…When you ask a question in your language, the entire world should have a chance to understand and respond."
Update. "Multilingualism in science…expands the participation and dialogue among diverse communities of scientists and influences stakeholders who use science to address urgent global issues. [But] systematic and sustained implementation of multilingual scholarly communication and peer-reviewed publishing is cumbersome for journal management platforms, research teams, and editorial boards…This Research Note…proposes the first statement of the _Journal of Disaster Studies_ (JDS) on inclusive multilingualism."
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/971123
Update. "A scholarly communication ecosystem with one dominant language presents numerous inequities. Implementing multilingualism is complex and there is no single strategy to achieve it. Rather, multilingualism can take different forms, and small steps taken by different actors can add up to increase linguistic diversity. This commentary unpacks some of the complexities involved in multilingual scholarly communication and offers some concrete recommendations for moving forward."
https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/cjils/article/view/22292
Update. "For the 1990-2023 period, we find that only Indonesian, Portuguese and Spanish have expanded at a faster pace than English. Country-level analyses show that this trend is due to the growing strength of the Latin American and Indonesian academic circuits. Our results also confirm…that social sciences and humanities are the least English-dominated fields. Our findings suggest that policies recognizing the value of both national-language and English-language publications have had a concrete impact on the distribution of languages in the global field of scholarly communication."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.21100
A smack of all neighbouring languages: How multilingual is scholarly communication?
Language is a major source of systemic inequities in science, particularly among scholars whose first language is not English. Studies have examined scientists' linguistic practices in specific contexts; few, however, have provided a global analysis of multilingualism in science. Using two major bibliometric databases (OpenAlex and Dimensions), we provide a large-scale analysis of linguistic diversity in science, considering both the language of publications (N=87,577,942) and of cited references (N=1,480,570,087). For the 1990-2023 period, we find that only Indonesian, Portuguese and Spanish have expanded at a faster pace than English. Country-level analyses show that this trend is due to the growing strength of the Latin American and Indonesian academic circuits. Our results also confirm the own-language preference phenomenon (particularly for languages other than English), the strong connection between multilingualism and bibliodiversity, and that social sciences and humanities are the least English-dominated fields. Our findings suggest that policies recognizing the value of both national-language and English-language publications have had a concrete impact on the distribution of languages in the global field of scholarly communication.