[indymike]

> Imagine a world where every piece of poetry, novel or literature would be forced to be written in English.

Nobody is wanting that world.

> because "not enough Anglo Saxon"

What is this, the year 1055? "Anglo Saxon" ceased to be a cultural group later that century. Now "Anglo-Saxon" is just a phony geopolitical spectre, mostly invoked by despotic governments as a scapegoat.

> hire professional translators for that, and let the creator alone...that is the right thing to do.

It would be if scientific publications had audiences where it made economic sense to do such a translation. Additionally, the cost of such translation for scientific literature is much more expensive owing to the need for great accuracy.

[pvaldes]

Most scientists work for free for the journals as reviewers, the same Journals earn also money obviously selling the product and they aren't cheap. They didn't spend a cent into the research done. Somebody else paid for it.

How the cost of a translator could be too expensive when everybody is working for free for you?

> What is this, the year 1055?

If your surname is Brown your work will be treated clearly different by journals than if it is Gutierres or Coulibaly. The editors probably don't even perceive that there is a bias here.

Including at least a member with an English name in your team is a known trick that eases to be accepted by publishers.

[cge]

>How the cost of a translator could be too expensive when everybody is working for free for you?

I don't necessarily disagree that translation would be beneficial, but it isn't just a matter of cost. As an author, I would absolutely not be comfortable with a journal translating my research without my direct involvement. Translation would require too much expert knowledge of the specific fields involved. I'd even be uncomfortable myself with translation of specific terms, even for languages I might know in non-scholarly contexts: it would require knowing the literature of the specific field in the language.

So it wouldn't be enough to have the journal hire a translator. It would be more work for the authors, and likely for others in their field who would need to be brought in.