English dominance in scholarly publishing declines, new languages gain ground

According to a new study from the Université de Montréal, the English language’s share of academic output in scholarly publishing fell from 94 per cent to 85 per cent between 1990 and 2023. Researchers analysed 88 million articles and 1.48 billion cited references using the OpenAlex and Dimensions databases.

The findings, published in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology¹, reveal that Indonesian, Portuguese, and Spanish are the only languages expanding faster than English. This growth stems from successful national policies and robust regional publishing infrastructures.

The dramatic rise of Indonesian in scholarly publishing

Indonesian has experienced the most remarkable growth in recent publishing news. It rose from near invisibility in the early 1990s to represent 2.69 per cent of global scholarly publications by 2023. Consequently, it has now surpassed both French and German in volume.

This breakthrough followed a 2014 government decree. The mandate required all scholarly publications to be freely accessible online. This led to the widespread adoption of Open Journal Systems (OJS), an open-source publishing platform.

“This is a good example of how national policies on linguistic diversity can change the publishing landscape,” said Carolina Pradier, lead author of the study, speaking for a news story on the Université website. Similarly, Spanish and Portuguese publications in Latin America have grown steadily. Platforms such as Latindex, SciELO, and Redalyc have helped the region build a self-sufficient ecosystem for knowledge dissemination.

European languages in decline

In contrast, French has experienced a sharp decline in scholarly publishing. Once the second most common language with a 2.14 per cent share in 1990, it fell to just 1.06 per cent by 2023. German followed a similar trend, slipping from 1.38 per cent to 1.23 per cent over the same period.

The study attributes these changes to structural integration. Researchers in France and Quebec are well-integrated into dominant networks. Therefore, they have the resources and pressure to publish primarily in English. Conversely, peripheral countries are developing more independent, local networks.

Citations remain overwhelmingly English

While the prevalence of English in publications has eroded, its dominance in citations remains absolute. Although English publications account for 85 per cent of the corpus, they represent 98.89 per cent of all cited references.

Even in countries with the lowest English output, such as Indonesia and Brazil, English references account for at least 92 per cent of citations. Pradier explained: “Non-English speaking researchers can now produce work in their own language, but they must still engage with literature overwhelmingly written in English.”

Variation across scientific domains

The role of language varies by field. In natural sciences and engineering, English is nearly universal. However, the social sciences and humanities show more diversity. In these fields, the share of English publications sits at 89.91 per cent. French-language journals in the humanities represent a “pocket of resistance,” often citing fewer English sources due to the localised nature of the research.

The hidden costs of English dominance

The study highlights the negative consequences for researchers whose first language is not English. These individuals face higher rejection rates, increased stress, and more time spent writing. Pradier warns that this creates an “epistemic loss.” Entire swaths of global knowledge remain invisible to the international community because they are written in undervalued languages.

Recommendations for policymakers

The researchers suggest two key reforms for the industry:

• Implement open-source platforms: Provide no-cost, accessible journal publishing tools.
• Reform evaluation systems: Reduce dependency on citation counts, which inherently favours English.
• “Evaluation should take into account quality and local relevance,” Pradier concluded.

 

1. Pradier, C., Céspedes, L., & Larivière, V. (2026). How multilingual is scholarly communication? Mapping the global distribution of languages in publications and citations. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 77(5), 699–713. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70055