by Pete Rosenbery
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Work continues on finding ways to communicate with nonhuman intelligence, and an international conference at Southern Illinois University Carbondale on Saturday, Nov. 9, will delve deeper into language and the increased possibilities of breaking those barriers.
SIU Carbondale is hosting a hybrid conference on extraterrestrial communication Saturday, Nov. 9, in the Sharp Museum Auditorium. (Main photo by Yenitza Melgoza; photo of Jeffrey Punske by Brianna Pay; photo of Douglas Vakoch by Kassi Jones)
The hybrid workshop, “Exploring Xenolinguistics: Next steps in exploring the nature of language and the potential of extraterrestrial communication,” is from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Sharp Museum Auditorium. Admission is free, and the public is invited. Registration to watch the program is also available via Zoom.
The conference will “probe questions concerning the nature of human language, communication and cognition,” said Jeffrey Punske, an associate professor in linguistics at SIU Carbondale. Punske and Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, a workshop co-sponsor, co-edited “Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language,” published last year.
The workshop will feature keynote talks from Irene Pepperberg, an adjunct research professor at Boston University, and Matthew Brown, professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Dewey Studies at SIU Carbondale. And it will include speakers from as far away as Germany and Japan.
Xenolinguistics involves the study of human and animal language communication systems to envision the communication might occur with extraterrestrial life.
Punske said he hopes the conference provides fresh perspectives on the research, along with public involvement and interest.
“We wanted to try to get some scholars who hadn’t participated in that volume to provide additional commentary and additional context and their thoughts,” he said. “We are bringing in a few people who were contributors, but most of our speakers are going to be new, who are looking at it with fresh eyes.”
Breaking down barriers
Vakoch said the better humans can understand communication between lifeforms on Earth “the better we can comprehend extraterrestrials.”
“We used to think that human language was unique, having features never found in animal communication,” he said. “The more we learn about other species, the more similarities we find.”
The conference takes place one week before the 50th anniversary of humankind’s first radio message to the stars, transmitted from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico on Nov. 16, 1974, Vakoch said.
“That first message included key concepts drawn from the work of astronomers, biologists and chemists,” he said. “But what if linguists designed our interstellar messages instead? What would that tell extraterrestrials about humanity? The answers that we get to these questions in Carbondale could be critical to making first contact.”
Important for public discussion
Punske and Vakoch each emphasized xenolinguistics’ importance to the public. It offers an opportunity to also “reframe and rethink” language, Punske said.
“This is a way to tap into our creativity, our imagination and our enthusiasm for this kind of science fiction – imagining what might be out there by thinking of it,” he said.
Punske hopes the conference is also attractive to people whose interest isn’t just in extraterrestrial possibilities, but also zoology, anthropology and psychology. Vakoch said xenolinguistics goes beyond academia.
“Even if we never make first contact, by pondering the possibility of alien life, we can have a new perspective,” Vakoch said. “Sending messages to the stars is too important to be done by just a handful of scientists. We’ve also surveyed the general public about what they would want to say to an alien civilization. The more the general public knows about the challenges of interstellar communication, the better they will be able to contribute.”
METI International is a nonprofit research organization that transmits radio messages to nearby stars in hopes of making first contact. Vakoch noted in 2017 METI transmitted the first message designed for blind aliens from the EISCAT radar transmitter in Tromsø, Norway, north of the Arctic Circle, and on Oct. 14, 2024, when NASA’s Europa Clipper launched on its journey to Jupiter’s ice-covered moon, the spacecraft included “water words” in over 100 languages collected by METI linguists, as well as a METI-designed depiction of the “water hole,” a band of radio frequencies where astronomers have long searched for signals from extraterrestrials.