What Language Will Humans Use to Talk With Extraterrestrials?

For several decades, astronomers and experts have been trying to explore space and find out if there is any truth behind the existence of extraterrestrial beings. One of the biggest concerns for these experts is how to communicate with these extraterrestrial beings if we ever confront them.

To exchange information and ideas, both species must be able to interact with each other. The pursuit may become difficult if there is no common ground between both parties.

Ian Roberts, a professor of linguistics, who is also at the University of Cambridge, believes that if humans are dealing with an intelligent species, then their language will be similar, BBC reported.

"My personal opinion is that, at its core, the language would have to be quite similar to ours in the sense that its formal mathematical nature would be similar to human language," says Roberts, BBC reported. "But at the same time, they wouldn't necessarily have anything like speech."

Roberts believes that the absence of speech will not make a huge difference in communication, BBC reported. Human language, he noted, also comprises more than just speech. It involves writing, body movements, drumming, whistles, and more.

"What's really remarkable about human language is that whatever form it's carried in, it has fundamentally the same properties," Roberts explained, BBC reported. "It's interesting to question: we have a good idea what human grammars look like, so what might alien grammars look like?"

Roberts does not deny that extraterrestrial beings with low intellect in comparison to humans might exist, but he is simply not interested in them, BBC reported. "It may well be that there's some kind of bacterial life on Mars or on the moons of Jupiter – but these would be very simple organisms," he added. "What I'm interested in is the nature of intelligent organisms. So, you have to decide, what's the criterion for intelligence?"

For Roberts, a species' intelligence is judged based on the technology they have at their behest, BBC reported.

Roberts believes, humans should embrace the way extraterrestrial beings might externalize their language and work towards decoding it, BBC reported. He states that, at present, humans are not prepared to analyze any signals that extraterrestrials might throw their way for communication.

"For a time people thought there would be certain regularities in a signal that would make clear it wasn't natural," said Roberts, BBC reported. "But certain celestial bodies do emit very regular signals, such as quasars. We would need evidence that there was some kind of an intention behind the signal."

Roberts wants experts to focus on things humans might have in common with the extraterrestrial beings, BBC reported. Roberts is on the Advisory Council of  Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Meti), an organization founded in 2015, whose objective is to send messages out into the space, in hopes of receiving a reply. 

The messages sent by Meti reflect human intelligence and focus on content that species with a similar level of intellect will be able to grasp, BBC reported. The idea is to convey "very basic scientific information encoded in a particular way, which would make it clear to any aliens who managed to decode it that we had scientific knowledge", explained Roberts.

Harvard astrophysicist, Avi Loeb, states that humans must be prepared for the possibility that there is a wide gap in technology between humans and the concerned extraterrestrial species, Harvard Gazette reported.

He believes that there could be a scenario in which these extraterrestrial species might not want to establish any communication with "ants on the sidewalk." However, if both parties agree to interact with each other, Loeb believes that a proper AI system should be established.

Loeb explains that we will "need our own AI systems to assist us in interpreting their AI systems,” Harvard Gazette reported. 

Jesse Snedeker, a professor of psychology and expert in language comprehension is optimistic that some concepts in the language of extraterrestrial beings and human beings will be similar, to aid in establishing a line of communication, Harvard Gazette reported. 

“I’m kind of hopeful that we’ll have enough in common with their conceptual structures,” Snedeker said, adding that “incomplete understanding is still understanding to some degree. If we had slightly different concepts than theirs or even substantially different, we [still] might get a long way toward understanding.”

Roberts is positive that if messages come from outer space, humans will be able to identify them, BBC reported "My gut feeling is that we would be able to tell one way or another. Because, just as when we send signals, they would want to send us something that was recognizable, too," he said.

Loeb wants more investment in the pursuit of searching for alien life in the universe, Harvard Gazette reported.  "Given the public’s interest in the subject, the implications that it will have for the future of humanity, I think it’s actually non-intelligent on behalf of the scientific community not to engage with a search," he explained.