An alien language is a general term for any language that could be used by theoretical intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms alien to the planet Earth. The study of such languages may be termed xenolinguistics .

The problem of alien language is one that has confronted generations of science fiction writers; some have even created fictional languages for their characters to use. Moreover, even the remote possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life makes the question of alien language a somewhat credible topic for scientific and philosophical speculation.

Science fiction

Several sci-fi stories contain some alien culture that involves language. For example, the protagonist of C.S. Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet is able to use his training in historical linguistics to reconstruct the languages spoken on Mars. Fortunately for the character, Lewis was a creationist, and therefore found it plausible to make his aliens speak an Indo-European dialect. Likewise, the Martians of Phillip K. Dick's Martian Time Slip are somehow related to Australian Aborigines, and speak a form of pidgin English.

Authors with more conventional views on anthropogenesis, however, have had to take recourse to more elaborate devices - for example, Douglas Adams's babel fish.

Perhaps the most fully-developed fictional alien language is the Klingon tongue of the Star Trek universe - a fully-developed constructed language. Star Trek also features Linguacode, a picture-based communications medium used upon first contact with unknown species.

The movie Mars Attacks contains unusual auditory alien language spoken by the Martians.

In the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, scientists use music to communicate with alien visitors.

Science fact

There is continued debate over whether extraterrestrial life exists, or whether mankind has ever made contact with alien civilisations; as of 2005, no substantiable examples of extraterrestrial communication have been shown to exist. Moreover, programmes in this field such as SETI leave questions to be answered: if alien language did exist, and if we could pick it up, could we identify it as such? If so, could we ever hope to comprehend it? Some accounts of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language would cast doubt on these possibilities. Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, once wrote that "if a lion could speak, we would not be able to understand him." On the other hand, many referentialist and verificationist accounts of language would make this gap seem more bridgeable.

See also

• Codename
• Fictional language

External link

• A Primer In SF XENOLINGUISTICS, by Justin B. Rye