If aliens are out there, floating around in their advanced UFOs or perhaps swimming in some interstellar soup, they might one day decide to drop us a line. And when they do, we humans—paragons of preparedness that we are—will look up, blink into the blinding celestial message, and ask, “Wait, was that Morse code? Or just cosmic indigestion?”
Welcome to xenolinguistics, a real thing that real humans with real PhDs are studying. It’s not just sci-fi daydreaming for Reddit threads anymore. This tiny academic field—20 to 30 brave souls strong—is tackling the crucial question: How would we talk to aliens? But more interestingly: Why do we talk at all?
Because here's the truth: language isn’t always about saying true things. Sometimes it’s about lying to your boss about why you’re late (again), posting a vague Facebook status that screams “ask me what’s wrong,” or telling your cat she's a “sweet little angel” when she is clearly a murder gremlin in a fur coat.
So, naturally, the question becomes: would aliens even be trying to “communicate” in any way we’d recognize as language? Or would their version of “hi” be a rapidly oscillating cloud of plasma that smells faintly like burnt toast and existential dread?
If a Heptapod Texts You, Don't Leave Them on Read
Let’s rewind to Arrival, the 2016 movie where Amy Adams (not a real linguist, though honestly, probably qualified at this point) is tasked with decoding alien Rorschach inkblots that are somehow a full-blown language. Spoiler alert: their sentences are shaped like coffee stains and they think about time like it’s a Rubik’s cube on mushrooms.
The whole plot hinges on this magical idea that we can crack alien language, like it’s just Duolingo for Squid Dialect. But in real life, the linguistic situation is much less “oh cool” and much more “where do we even begin?”
Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, used to think language wouldn’t matter in alien communication—because, duh, our squishy brain-based yapping is kind of specific to Earth biology. But then, plot twist! He realized that trying to imagine alien language forces us to rethink our own. You know, like how looking into the abyss makes the abyss wonder if you're gaslighting it.
Wait, What Is the Point of Language?
This is the existential question xenolinguists are trying to answer, because if we don’t know why we talk, how the hell are we supposed to figure out what aliens are doing when they flash Morse code in gamma rays or fart out a string of neutrino poetry?
Philosopher Matthew Brown straight-up called xenolinguistics a field “with no data.” And yet, it’s thriving. Astrobiology doesn’t have any aliens either, but we still gave it a name and a NASA badge. Because apparently, we love theorizing about things we’ve never seen—looking at you, stock market.
Still, there are insights to be had. Irene Pepperberg, famed parrot whisperer and professional bird arguer, reminds us that even Earth animals communicate in ways we barely comprehend. Dogs sniff histories in a single blade of grass. Bats scream in sonar. Birds flex in ultraviolet. And these creatures share our planet. Aliens might make all of us look like mute potatoes by comparison.
What If Aliens Aren’t Trying to Say Anything?
This is where things get spicy. Elin McCready, philosopher and science fiction enthusiast, came to the xenolinguistics party with one massive killjoy of a question: What if aliens don’t use language the way we do at all? Maybe they don’t want to share truths. Maybe they want to vibe. Or pray. Or manipulate. Or tell jokes we’ll never understand. (Honestly, the universe’s oldest meme might be about us, and we wouldn’t even know it.)
Because here’s the kicker: humans don’t always talk to tell the truth either. Sometimes we talk to lie. Or stall. Or flirt. Or avoid uncomfortable silences in elevators. Language is a social dance, a poker game, and a weapon—all rolled into one sloppy, beautiful mess.
So why assume that aliens would be like, “Greetings, carbon-based friends. Here is a mathematically elegant description of Ï€ and hydrogen”? They might show up and just send us a celestial version of a dad joke. Or worse, a bureaucratic form we have to fill out in triplicate before First Contact.
Xenolinguistics Isn’t Really About Aliens. It's About Us.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: studying alien communication isn't really about the aliens. It’s about turning the mirror inward and asking, “Why do we communicate? What do we hope to gain from it? And what assumptions are we making about others?”
McCready argues that this field is basically a cosmic metaphor for understanding each other. Every day, we try to connect with people who grew up in different environments, shaped by different beliefs, wielding language like it’s a blunt object in a glass house.
So, xenolinguistics? It's not just SETI for your mouth. It’s therapy. It’s anthropology. It’s a giant, celestial group chat where nobody speaks the same emoji dialect.
And maybe, just maybe, if we spend enough time contemplating how aliens might say “hello,” we’ll finally figure out how to stop yelling at each other over Wi-Fi passwords and pineapple on pizza.
Conclusion:
So, how might aliens communicate? Maybe via light pulses. Maybe through smell. Maybe by manipulating quantum fields in interpretive dance form. Who knows.
But the more pressing question is: Why would they bother? And what does our obsession with their hypothetical language say about our need to be understood?
Because at the end of the day, whether we’re talking to octopuses, parrots, politicians, or little green beings from Alpha Centauri, the hardest part of communication isn’t the message. It’s knowing whether anyone’s actually listening—or if they’re just waiting for their turn to speak.
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