English: the lingua franca of scientific research
Authors: Raoul Kamadjeu
Journal: The Lancet Global Health (2019)

I read with interest the comment by Anne Roca and colleagues in The Lancet Global Health.1Roca A Boum Y Wachsmuth I Plaidoyer contre l'exclusion des francophones dans la recherche en santé mondiale.Lancet Glob Health. 2019; 7: e701-e702Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (14) Google Scholar Does it make sense, however, to cry for the exclusion of French from global health research? What about the exclusion of Portuguese, Arabic, or any of the estimated 7000 languages spoken today? Translating every piece of good research in all possible written languages is not feasible. This is why a lingua franca emerged, so that researchers from various linguistic backgrounds can communicate freely. Languages follow a Darwinian process of evolution, in which the fittest languages survive and the weak languages die. As a result of many historical events, English is the current lingua franca of science, as were Latin and Greek in their time. My experience as the managing editor of an international journal is that accommodating multiple languages in a scientific journal is not easy and the incentives for publishers to do so are not many, since there is no shortage of material in English. A good example is the official WHO Bulletin, which publishes its content in all the official languages of the organisation, and has the corresponding financial and staffing means to do so. When we established the Pan African Medical Journal in 2008, we committed to publish content in English and French, the two most widely spoken official languages on the continent. We are struggling to sustain this commitment because it comes at a cost ranging from hiring a full-time medical translator, increasing subediting linked to French (close to one-third of the manuscripts in English by French native speakers are returned for language editing), to adapting the publishing platform to properly provide multi-language content. We have thus always advocated that those organisations which are interested in promoting the use of French, such as the International Organisation of La Francophonie, should take steps such as working with journal editors to support dual-language publication. Publishing in English for non-English speakers is not easy, but the reward far outweighs the challenges—it is clear that work published in English is accessible to many compared with French or another language. Our journal's statistics show that articles in English are accessed 70% more than those in French, and limiting the circulation of a journal's content by design in this manner would be a disincentive for any publisher. For Africans in general and African researchers specifically, the choice of a language should be dictated by pure self-interest. Moving to English-speaking Africa opened my eyes to the immense inequities in the access to training, scholarship, sponsorship, and funding opportunities between people in the francophone and anglophone parts of Africa. It pains me even more when I travel to Portuguese-speaking Africa and witness how difficult it is to access new knowledge and training opportunities and to bring in good experts because of the language barrier. Policy makers should mandate that the languages of education are decided by the need to promote equitable access to information, knowledge, and skills. I still cannot comprehend why some countries in Africa stubbornly stick to a language that (1) was imposed on them by the brutal process of colonisation and (2) severely restricts their access to knowledge. English will remain, for the foreseeable future, the lingua franca of science and technology. Policy makers in Africa should be pragmatic and ensure that their populations are equipped to benefit from, and contribute to, research by adopting English as the language of education. This change is not merely a wish—at least one country in Africa has done it; Rwanda2English to become official language in Rwanda.https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97245421Date: 2008Date accessed: July 15, 2019Google Scholar was able to transform the linguistic landscape of its education system in less than two decades and has, in the process, widely expanded its researchers' timely access and contribution to scientific knowledge. RK is the founder and managing editor of the Pan African Medical Journal and declares no competing interests. The French version of this Correspondence is in the appendix. Download .pdf (.23 MB) Help with pdf files Supplementary appendix Plaidoyer contre l'exclusion des francophones dans la recherche en santé mondialeL'anglais est la langue dominante dans les sciences et a fortiori dans la recherche en santé mondiale.1 Sans une langue commune, le partage des connaissances et la collaboration seraient certes impossibles, mais l'utilisation quasi-exclusive de l'anglais a un impact indéniable sur le travail des chercheurs dont ce n'est pas la langue maternelle. Les appels d'offre des bailleurs de fonds, les revues médicales les plus influentes, les conférences internationales les plus prestigieuses auxquelles il est important de participer, sont dans leur grande majorité anglophones. Full-Text PDF Open Access