Raymond Hickey.
Life and Language Beyond Earth.
CUP. 2023
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.