“Io l’ho scritta volgare perché ho bisogno che ogni persona la possi leggere” “I have written it in a common language because I wanted everybody could read it”
This phrase was written by Galileo in a letter (dated on June 16th, 1612) to his friend, the canon Paolo Gualdo, explaining that his new book on sun spots would be published in Italian and not in Latin as it was the tradition for scientific publications in those years. The idea of Galileo of making science accessible was followed lately by other authors such as Descartes o Boyle that published their work in their own language with the idea of making their writings more accessible to general public.
Nowadays we are living a reverse process. English is the universal language for science and in order to disseminate their work, researchers try to publish them in English avoiding their own foreign language. By publishing in English, research can be read by more foreign researchers and, at the same time we, as readers, can have immediate access to the research made by groups of investigation of different countries. Otherwise, it would be more difficult if all researchers publish their work in their own foreign language.
It is difficult to know the exact number of scientific journals dedicated to the field of the foot and ankle (in Spain there are more than five). However, we do know who of those journals are the most important because of their scientific level and the impact of its publications. All of them are written in English. This is not just because English spoken countries are more advance in this field, but because professionals and researchers of other countries try to publish their studies in English to get their work spreaded.
Scientific world is now based on digital contents, fast access to information and a universal language (which is English). Revista Española de Podología wants to adapt to this scientific globalization movement with a journal adapted to English language. During this process, we will have to face several challenges including the bilingualism issue. Although the official language of Revista Española de Podología is Spanish and all papers will also be published in Spanish, the journal staff wants to make a bilingual journal progressively. Last number included one paper in both languages and in this number there will be 2 papers along with this editorial letter published in both languages. Those papers published in English will appear in the on-line version of the journal.
Revista Española de Podología gives the opportunity to all authors (both Spanish spoken authors and not Spanish spoken) to publish their works in English in the journal. We understand this is a good opportunity for Spanish spoken authors for dissemination of your work overseas. At the same time, foreign authors (not Spanish spoken) are also invited to publish their work in English and the journal will cover the translation into Spanish. The journal will support all those papers by publishing them with the best standards of quality in a digital and open-access journal.