Editorial: Acta Musicologica and Multilingualism

When the first major treatise dedicated to the aesthetics, theory, and practice of music, dance, and theater, the Natyaśastra, began to appear in manuscript versions in the third century CE and in variants thereafter, it bore witness to the interaction of multiple languages, first, to codify meaning in Sanskrit, but soon thereafter to allow multiple paths to understanding the arts in their variety throughout South Asia. On one hand, such pressure benefits English-speaking colleagues in an internationally competitive environment in the short term, while on the other, it has a negative impact for them in the mid- to long terms. In a position paper from 2009, the British Academy warns that Englishspeaking scientists may rapidly lose their foreign-language competence due to the current monolinguistic tendency, "which limits their ability to engage with research topics requiring advanced knowledge of languages other than English"3 In the same paper, the British Academy asserts that science advances not only through the discovery of new sources, but also through the development of new ways of thinking, which in turn responds to stimulation from other scientific traditions and ways of thinking, is extremely important.