Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language

Xenolinguistics brings together biologists, anthropologists, linguists, and other experts specializing in language and communication to explore what non-human, non-Earthbound language might look like. The 18 chapters examine what is known about human language and animal communication systems to provide reasonable hypotheses about what we may find if we encounter non-Earth intelligence.

Showcasing an interdisciplinary dialogue between a set of highly established scholars, this volume:

• Clarifies what is and is not known about human language and animal communication systems
• Presents speculative arguments as a philosophical exercise to help define the boundaries of what our current science can tell us about non-speculative areas of investigation
• Provides readers with a clearer sense of how our knowledge about language is better informed through a cross-disciplinary investigation
• Offers a better understanding of future avenues of research on language

This rich interdisciplinary collection, with chapter authors including Noam Chomsky, Derek Ball, Denise Herzing, and Irene Pepperberg, will be of interest to researchers and students studying non-human communication, astrobiology, and language invention.

Douglas A. Vakoch is Director of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), a nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to transmitting intentional signals to nearby stars. He is the editor of more than a dozen books, including Ecofeminist Science Fiction: International Perspectives on Gender, Ecology, and Literature (2021) and The Routledge Handbook of Ecofeminism and Literature (2022).

Jeffrey Punske is Associate Professor and the director of undergraduate studies in linguistics at Southern Illinois University. He is the editor of Language Invention and Linguistics Pedagogy (2020).