Most current strategies assume a language with a structure based on sound units. When linguists approach an unfamiliar language, breaking spoken phrases into repetitive sound units is the first step in detecting patterns that could indicate meaning.
In the absence of such sound units, a written language can be analyzed for similar linguistic structures of meaning, called morphemes, but this often requires too vast a body of data.
Lincos
This is what we see, for example, in the movie The Arrival, focused almost exclusively on the challenge of understanding a language built under other totally different psychological rules (even that they assume more spatial dimensions than those assumed by our brain).
The problem is that creating a method to decode an unknown language without relying on parallels with Earth languages seems an insurmountable obstacle. It is entirely possible that an alien language has no sound or, alternatively, lacks a written component, so these traditionally reliable methods would be useless if we are presented with such foreign language.
In fact, we also see a wide range of forms of communication on Earth. Beyond gestural and vocal communication, we also see communication through dance in honey bees, for example. How could we communicate with such an intelligent extraterrestrial species?
What this makes clear is that human biases permeate all efforts to classify both non-human communication and to develop a reliable translation methodology for extraterrestrial languages.
Still, scientists have attempted to address this problem based on the premise that lMathematics and physics are a kind of universal language. But the search for a mathematical or physical solution is not without drawbacks. Not only does it exclude the possibility of a radically different approach to physics (another element in many science fiction narratives), but it also lacks the inclusion of sociocultural data: an intrinsic element in any exhaustive linguistic analysis.
The mathematician Hans Freudenthal has attempted to design a language for use in extraterrestrial communication with beings who had no knowledge of the culture, languages or people of Earth. Fundamentally rooted in mathematics, Lincos, an abbreviation of the Latin phrase cosmic language, which means cosmic language, teaches the basic concepts of numbers, arithmetic, set theory, and mathematical logic.
In any attempt to communicate with someone who uses a different language, it is essential to bridge the gap between the languages of the two interlocutors. Lincos aims to do this by using mathematics and physics as the common ground or linguistic bridge between Earth and an extraterrestrial civilization. However, it also establishes the potentially mistaken assumption that mathematics is a universal concept.
The union of linguistics and computer science, known as computational linguistics, provides another variety of translation procedures, but also has difficulties similar to those of a mathematical/physical strategy. It makes the problematic assumption that extraterrestrial civilizations would produce messages in the same way as human beings.
So finding intelligent life will be a challenge. Understanding her could be an even bigger challenge..
–
The news
The biggest challenge if we find intelligent life on other planets will be understanding its language: Lincos could be a solution
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.