As a child, I used to love films like Star Wars. Zipping around up there, in the stars seemed amazing to me. As I’ve gotten older, I have begun to think to myself what would alien languages actually sound like?
On Earth, there are hundreds of different ways animals communicate with one another. As humans, we are accustomed to communicating verbally. For some, this does create some rather weird languages, whilst others are perfectly “normal”.
However, in the animal kingdom they communicate in some very strange ways…
For aliens, it would quite literally be out of this world! (Both figuratively and literally… I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)
What are Alien Languages?
It sounds simple enough, I know. However, I feel the need to ensure that we are on the same page.
Alien languages are (as of the time of writing) only a hypothetical subject. Although many conspiracy theorists claim to have encountered aliens in the past, no reputable organization has proven that aliens (and by extension, alien languages) exist.
Nevertheless, alien languages are any languages that are spoken by extraterrestrial beings.
In popular media, these are associated with the languages spoken by fictional, intelligent, humanoid-looking aliens. However, it would also include the languages of non-intelligent alien creatures too.
Astrolinguistics is the technical name for the study of alien languages, with anyone who studies them being known as an astrolinguist. Several major universities around the world, offer courses in this.
With that being said, I have never personally taken one of these courses, so I can’t say how good/bad they are. I’m also not sure how useful they are in everyday life either!
Modern-Day Examples
Despite no official alien languages having ever been recorded, it hasn’t stopped people from trying to see what they’d sound like. After all, it is a subject that fascinates a lot of people.
Over the last 50 years or so, film makers in particular have taken a shine to the concept of extraterrestrials. With this, they have often needed to create fictional languages for some, or all of their alien characters.
Among the most of these fictional languages is Huttese from the Star Wars franchise (the language Jabba the Hutt speaks) or Rhodian (the language that Greedo speaks in A New Hope) also seen in the Star Wars franchise.
In 2016, sci-fi movie Arrival depicted aliens making their first contact with Earth. To make the film as accurate as possible, the directors used atrolinguists to help them develop an authentic-sounding alien language.
Naturally, this is not is not an exhaustive list by any means. They are simply the most common languages spoken by alien characters in popular films.
Due to the popularity of sci-fi novels and comics, especially those relating to extraterrestrials and space travel in general, many more authors and artists have had to come up with weird and unusual alien languages.
Many of these have become popular fictional languages in their own rights, albeit with the book/comic’s own group of followers.
What Would Alien Languages Sound Like?
In all honesty, I can’t tell you. I simply do not know. I have sadly never met an alien in order to ask them. As such, I can only hypothesize. Perhaps it is one of these ways, perhaps it is none of them.
They’re all derived from how various creatures on Earth communicate. Maybe they’ve evolved to fit the same thing. However, we will not know definitively until/if we meet actual aliens…
Oral
As humans, we are accustomed to communicating orally, as are most mammals on Earth. Perhaps aliens have evolved in the same way and communicate orally. Although that similarly opens Pandora’s box…
Clicking
Many African languages have evolved so that a large majority of their words involve some kind of clicking sound. Perhaps the most famous of these languages is Xhosa, spoken in South Africa.
There is the possibility that this could be a mainstay of alien languages. For humans, our languages have developed to mostly be non-clicking (although some are). Who’s to say that it isn’t the complete opposite for them?
Potentially, the ability to communicate via clicking helped the aliens’ ancestors hunt for food, or fend off large creatures. Perhaps it had some other evolutionary benefit that helped as well.
There is a possibility that the language may be half comprised of clicking sounds (or other sounds made in the back of your throat) and “normal” words. However, the same could be said for any of these!
However, depending on how these aliens have adapted on their home world, they may be too high or low for human ears to listen to. However, technology could soon fix this issue.
There is also the possibility that the human voice box and mouth is physically incapable of forming those clicking sounds. Again, technology could soon fix this, if this were to be the case.
Whistling
As humans, we only really whistle when we want to get someone’s attention when we are far away from them. Or, we are simply playing with a pet, and want them to do something in particular for us.
Nevertheless, there are some languages which are comprised mainly out of whistling. However, there are only a handful of these such languages, and most of them are dying out due to being very hard languages to learn.
Potentially, our alien counterparts have also got their own “whistling” languages. Unlike their terrestrial counterparts, these languages have flourished on other planets.
Perhaps languages like how we speak on Earth, are the minority on these other alien planets.
These whistling languages do pose several benefits, which, had evolution been different for humans on Earth, would’ve been more advantageous. Who’s to say it wasn’t four our extraterrestrial counterparts?!
As with before, there is no guarantee that humans will be able to hear or pronounce the language correctly. After all, it may be pronounced is a key that humans physically can’t hear.
“Normal”
There is a chance, I don’t know how big or small, that aliens have evolved in similarly to humans, or at least in how they communicate. Perhaps they too have developed their own oral language(s) similar to what humans have.
For this, there are several ways their language may be. There is a very slim chance it resembles English or another widely spoken language (at least in terms of grammar and structure).
However, there may be additional grammar points that make the alien language incredibly odd. This could be in the form of accents or tones, or even things that humans physically can’t pronounce!
I feel the need to say this: I do not support, nor believe these conspiracy theories. However, aliens may have already “dropped off” their language on Earth in the past, using one of the various language isolates. This may be their language today.
In terms of the written form of the language, it would be next to impossible to decipher. Perhaps it would use an alphabet like the Latin or Cyrillic (although an extraterrestrial variant, of course!)
Alternatively, it may have an alphabet similar to what Mandairn has- every symbol is its own word. It may even have three or four different “alphabets” in one, similar to Japanese.
Then there’s always the fact that it may be something completely different, or even a mixture of all of them.
Pheromones
Whilst most mammals communicate orally, fish, insects and other types of organisms communicate through another type of communication: via pheromones.
Pheromones are chemically-speaking, the exact same as hormones. However, instead of going to a certain area and causing a certain thing to happen, they are perspired out of the organism.
For the most part, these are used as distress signals or to attract potential mates. Even humans do the latter one, albeit on a lesser scale than what most other organisms do.
There are several cases of organisms, both animals and plants, who use pheromones to communicate. Mostly, this is used in the same way that we use language, however, we don’t know to what extent they are the same.
Potentially, our extraterrestrial counterparts may have evolved to communicate similarly to how we communicate. Instead of communicating through “normal” speech, they communicate through releasing pheromones.
This would potentially be the hardest type of language our extraterrestrial counterparts could speak. This is because our own knowledge of terrestrial pheromones is limited, and would take a while to find accurate translations.
Sign Language
On Earth, sign language (at least for humans) was developed to help those with hearing disabilities communicate. This is very similar to how braille was developed, albeit for blind people to read, rather than deaf people to communicate.
It may be possible that our extraterrestrial friends have evolved in a similar way. However, instead of only a handful of people using it, everyone uses it.
On the surface of it, this may seem rather basic- all we’d need to do is work out what sign/action means what word. However, biology will also play a part in this too.
Depending on how they’re made (genetically speaking), they may have extra “abilities” that humans don’t have (and vice versa). One of this may be the ability to move their arms quicker, or even to make them bend in ways most humans cannot.
This would make communication with them rather difficult, especially if two actions look a lot like one another, and it’s more to do with how long you extend/retract an arm or a finger.
Knowing our luck, this will be either a really essential word that we can’t sign. The word that we do sign will probably end up being a rather rude or insulting one as well.
Something Else
There is always the possibility that it will be something else in its entirety too. Whilst the above mentioned ways are the most common ways that animals on Earth communicate, it’s not all the ways.
Indeed, some animals, such as Herring, communicate via farting. I’m not assuming that our extraterrestrial friends will communicate by stinking out the room, but that is certainly a possibility.
Depending on how they’ve evolved on their own world, it may have been imperative to communicate that way in order to survive. However, this way would make communication rather difficult.
Many other animals on Earth communicate via touch. Many of them draw things, for example, two straight lines may be the word “Hello” whilst two wavy lines is the word “Goodbye”.
Our alien friends may have evolved in the same way. Different touches and symbols drawn on you (it may be a hand or an arm or something completely different!) mean different things completely.
Then there is also the fact that it may be something that is unique to the aliens’ home planet, and something that is not found on Earth. This will make communication incredibly difficult, but there’s not much either side can do about it.
How Would we Initially Communicate With Aliens?
This whole article assumes that there is indeed alien life out there. Moreover, it assumes that we would be able to come into contact with them directly, without the risk of transmitting diseases to or from either party.
Let’s assume that either we, or they had the technology to do this effectively, we would probably use some form of technology to pass along messages. However, this would be in our respective languages.
This causes several problems. Primarily, Earth doesn’t have one universal language. It has English as a Lingua Franca, but that is about it. Perhaps our alien counterparts have the same… only time will tell.
Assuming that issue was solved (with both parties choosing one language respectively), there’d be the issue of actually communicating.
Hopefully, we’d have studied these aliens beforehand (or they’d studied us) and we/they would already have a comprehensive understanding of their/our language.
If not, much of it would initially be mostly guessing. Almost playing charades in order to get your point across. This would take a lot of time to get right, but hopefully, would surfice in the short term.
If/when we meet aliens, it’s likely that the world’s governments will come together to decide best on how to approach and communicate with our alien friends. For now, we’ll just have to speculate…
How Would we Learn Alien Languages?
Assuming that neither humans nor aliens had studied the other before contacting the other, and neither human nor alien technology could act as a bridge between our two worlds, there is an historical precedent here on Earth…
Something similar to this has been tried on several occasions. After all, when Europeans stumbled on new, far off lands, they did not speak any language that the natives spoke.
Most famously, this was with the Europeans and Native Americans. However, was also done with Europeans and many South African tribes (including tribes such as the Zulu) as well as many Indian kingdoms.
When this happened, the Europeans usually raided a nearby settlement and forcibly taking them against their will. Here, they were treated relatively well, and were immersed in the Europeans’ culture.
Soon after, they’re fluent in both their native language, as well as the one spoken by the Europeans. Using these skills, they would often act as interpreters and translators, between the Europeans and Natives.
This could be done again, albeit with both sides exchanging willing volunteers, who would live in similar accommodations. These could act as Earth’s first official interstellar interpreters and translators.
Later on in life, they could also serve as language teachers, teaching the next generations of humans and aliens the other’s languages.
However, aliens will probably have different senses of morality than we do. This may be seen as kidnapping or even an act of war.
Would you like to learn an alien language? How do you think we’d do it? Tell me in the comments!