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Have you ever wondered whether we are alone in the universe, or if life forms on other planets might exist? If they do exist, how might their languages have evolved? Could we ever understand them, and indeed learn to communicate with them? This highly original, thought-provoking book takes us on a fascinating journey over billions of years, from the formation of galaxies and solar systems, to the appearance of planets in the habitable zones of their parent stars, and then to how biology and, ultimately, human life arose on our own planet. It delves into how our brains and our language developed, in order to explore the likelihood of communication beyond Earth and whether it would evolve along similar lines. In the process, fascinating insights from the fields of astronomy, evolutionary biology, palaeoanthropology, neuroscience and linguistics are uncovered, shedding new light on life as we know it on Earth, and beyond.
‘This book is a great read that grips you from the start - it’s an absolute Wunderkammer of enthralling facts and informed speculations that build the case around possible life and language on planets beyond our Solar System.’
Kate Burridge - Professor of Linguistics at Monash University, Australia
‘Raymond Hickey offers fascinating surveys of two very different fields: astronomy and linguistics. But his book is specially valuable and farsighted because these two topics may some day be linked: rapid advances in exobiology lead optimists to conjecture that extraterrestrials could be discovered this century.’
Lord Martin Rees - Astronomer Royal
‘This fascinating book discusses the question of the nature of the languages spoken by possible intelligent extraterrestrials in an engaging and interesting way. The book is impressively wide-ranging, covering cosmology, evolution, biology, linguistics and many other fields. This is the most thorough treatment of these issues I am aware of and it will certainly be of interest to anyone curious to find out more about these fascinating questions.’
Ian Roberts - Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge and IUSS Pavia
‘Ray Hickey’s work has always surprised me in the ever-widening range of complex topics he’s tackled, but this book is a quantum leap beyond his earlier work. The story he tells here is amazing and along the way offers a crisp introduction to how linguists understand human language and our cognitive capacity for it.’
Joe Salmons - Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA
‘Life and Language beyond Earth takes us on a wondrous tour of the universe, as we explore exotic worlds and the alien civilizations that might flourish throughout our galaxy. By pondering the evolution of intelligence and language in a cosmic context, we are forced to rethink what it means to be human.’
Douglas Vakoch - President of METI International, editor of Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language
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