ABSTRACT
Frank Drake set a research agenda for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) with an equation designed to estimate the number of planets in our galaxy hosting intelligent life. This chapter proposes a similar equation regarding the likelihood of being able to communicate with extraterrestrials. In line with Drake’s original motivation, the purpose of this chapter is to map out important areas of study regarding the structure of possible alien languages, rather than to provide a specific answer. However, the results of this discussion suggest that although there would be a variety of practical challenges, it seems likely that humans and intelligent extraterrestrials would have at least overlapping cognitive capacities for communication and might be able to communicate with each other. This chapter focuses on perception and understanding as the critical properties of successful communication and specifically how they may be determined by grammatical and other factors. By studying these questions, we may also be able to frame our understanding of human languages from an objective perspective, for example by considering which properties are coincidental and possibly uniquely human, and which would be typical of the communicative abilities of any highly intelligent species.
