If you want your paper to be read by many scientists from all over the world, you have to write it in English. I am an Estonian, if I would write my paper in Estonian, then who would read it? Our population is only 1.3 million... Of course, many other languages are more widely spoken than Estonian (Mandarin, Spanish, German, French, Russian,...) but still, many scientists don't speak these (or know a couple of words or phrases... not enough to understand a scientific article) and they most probably won't be interested in paying somebody to translate such articles to English or their own language.

Rakesh - I would argue, from the top of my head - rather than any truly-informed position, that it is, currently, the 'way of the world'. The 'bottom-line' is that, for some time now (probably since the days of the British Empire) - I think that English is the most widely spoken-language in the world. Even if it is not - it is the most commonly used langauge within 'core' international and national commodities i.e. commerce, law, engineering, computing etc, etc - why would science, technology and academia behave any differently? There will always be variance in these systems - but there will always be the 'common denominator' as well. I suppsoe that those who make profound scientific discoveries and do not at least translate them to English - are probably well aware of that.

At the moment English is the language of choice, but this is not set in stone. There were also times when German or French were the major "research languages," I think it is mainly a matter of the language the most important discoveries appear in and the greatest number of interested readers are available.

With the need to save money in U.S. universities and the rise of Chinese researcher, I would be surprised if major research results will appear in Chinese first and English (maybe) later in a not so far future.

I agree with Matthias Wilhelm's statement: to-day, English is maybe the language of choice but from an historical perspective this has naturally not always been the case and must not be the case even in near future.

German and French have been and are again to-day (like Russian or other major languages) central communication tools for research and education (like for political, economic or other social affairs). Multilingualism in professional communication (of which scientific and technical communication is a part) is an important issue in the cultural policy of the European Union and countries like France, Germany, China, Brazil or Spain have a global linguistic and cultural policy which should not be underestimated (especially because of historical reasons).

Linguists also argue – in my opinion with good reasons – that the “global English” (used by researchers and other “professionals” all over the world) is not only a rather simplified and (lexically) reduced English but also a sort of English that integrates local linguistic particularities (or is integrated in such local linguistic particularities).

Basically the urge to make your work reach the world you use English, otherwise nobody is stopping anyone to use any other language.

Says:-

According to me, there is no written rule that English be the only Language for all the Research Journals/ Articles published. English was considered as an Universal Language mainly because of the British Colonisation during the 16th-19th Centuries. They were chiefly responsible for the spread of English. India is the best example for this. On the other hand, considering India, we totally had almost 1682 Languages of which only 22 were considered as Regional/ Official Languages and only 1 is considered as National Language. Now imagine if we had research journals for all these Languages and scholars publish their works in their Regional Languages. I am curious to know if the World is ready to accept this Great Indian knowledge flourish?

If you want your paper to be read by many scientists from all over the world, you have to write it in English. I am an Estonian, if I would write my paper in Estonian, then who would read it? Our population is only 1.3 million... Of course, many other languages are more widely spoken than Estonian (Mandarin, Spanish, German, French, Russian,...) but still, many scientists don't speak these (or know a couple of words or phrases... not enough to understand a scientific article) and they most probably won't be interested in paying somebody to translate such articles to English or their own language.

Correct Tiia - it comes down to the 'bottom-line' at the end of the day. We can hypothesize that other languages are likely to gain far more traction in the future and that trends come and go -both in the past and now. Many languages are based on a historical system of borrowing and social evolvement. For instance, I lived and worked for a few years in Turkey in the mid-1990s. It soon became obvious to me that the 'generic' Turkish language is influenced heavily by arabic, German and English. Look to the historical context - and it is easy to see why. It still relates back to events such as the British Empire and colonialism etc. Sai interestingly refers to the Indian conundrum. Yes - over 1600 different dialects and languages - but, if any common language binds them - it would be English. If we took a different example, however, such as China - the same could not so easily be inferred. British interests and involvement in China have been far more recent.

There is a huge literature on health communication/psychology published in Chinese journals only in Chinese.  Spanish is also another viable candidate given the extent of Spanish spoken in Central and South America with exception of Brazil.