Life and Language Beyond Earth

Raymond Hickey (University of Limerick)

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English

Cambridge University Press
21 September 2023

Language: history & general works; Historical & comparative linguistics; Mathematics & Sciences; Cosmology & the universe; Early man; Popular astronomy & space

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.

By: Raymond Hickey (University of Limerick)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 42mm
Weight: 1.110kg
ISBN: 9781009226417
ISBN 10: 100922641X
Pages: 695
Publication Date: 21 September 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

How to use this book; Part I. Introduction: 1. Approaching the topic; 2. Looking beyond Earth; 3. Striving to understand; Part II. The Universe We Live In: 4. Trying to grasp size; 5. Star formation and planets; 6. The likelihood of life; 7. Possible conditions on an exoplanet?; 8. How and where to look for exolife; 9. The limits of exploration; 10. Assessing probabilities; Part III. Our Story on Earth: 11. The slow path of evolution; 12. How does the whole work?; 13. The road to Homo sapiens; 14. The rise of human societies; Part IV. The Runaway Brain: 15. The brain-to-body ratio; 16. How brains develop; 17. Our cognition; 18. Consciousness; 19. Artificial intelligence; Part V. Language, our Greatest Gift: 20. Looking at language; 21. Talking about language; 22. The view from linguistics; 23. The language faculty and languages; 24. Language and the brain; 25. Acquiring language; 26. Humans and animals; Part VI. Life and Language, Here and Beyond: 27. Preconditions for life; 28. What might exolife be like?; 29. Looking for signs of life; 30. The issue of first contact; 31. Language beyond Earth; 32. How human language arose; 33. The language of exobeings; 34. Looking forward: the basic questions again; 35. Some final thoughts; Appendixes; Glossaries; Timelines.

Raymond Hickey is Adjunct Professor at the University of Limerick, Ireland and former Professor at the University of Duisburg and Essen, Germany. His main research interests are varieties of English, language contact, variation and change and issues in phonology. Some of his recent publications include Listening to the Past (2017), The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics (2017), English in Multilingual South Africa (2020) and The Handbook of Language Contact (2020).

Reviews for Life and Language Beyond Earth

'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