Publishing solely in English is a form of brain drain for non-English countries

One of the main aspects of globalization is English-speaking scholarly communication. Here, we argue that, by relying solely on English as the lingua franca of research dissemination, researchers are disconnecting themselves from the local enterprise of knowledge creation, thereby diminishing the impact of their research on their communities as well as denying their local language the opportunity to grow its scientific lexicon. This is a form of brain drain, as the local country incurs a considerable loss in the contribution of its skilled researchers who chose to publish exclusively in English. Addressing this issue by making modern science more inclusive through multilingual dissemination is critical. Specifically, at the local level, it is essential to (1) make research relevant and impactful to the local context, (2) allocate adequate resources to support local journals and publishers, (3) devise a reward system that offers incentives for researchers to also publish in their local language. At the global level, existing initiatives, such as the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and the Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication, should be endorsed by all stakeholders of scholarly communication, including funding agencies and publishers. This would also require indexing bodies to include more non-English journals in their research metrics. We underscore AI's role in making multilingual dissemination a viable process. Overall, inclusive scholarly communication must speak multiple languages.