'Alien dictionary' compiled by experts so we can chat easily with extra-terrestrials - Daily Star - Dictionary

Boffins have compiled the first ever “alien dictionary” to help us chat to ETs.

A group of 25 academics have come up with a guide to prepare us for our first encounter. The book, Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language, will help decipher and respond to any signals from outer space. Experts say it is vital our initial communications with other beings leads to friendship rather than “devastating” war.

They believe centuries of studies into ancient human language and animal calls and grunts can be used to “decode intentional communication from another world.” Dr Douglas Vakoch, the book’s editor and an astrobiologist, said: “I think it’s realistic that we could in our lifetimes get a message through Seti (Search for extraterrestrial intelligence) programmes or send out messages that could someday get a reply.”

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We all want to meet aliens, but will they understand us? (stock) (Image: Getty Images/Collection Mix: Sub)

Telescopes have been scanning the heavens for transmissions for half a century. Our own messages have also been sent into the cosmos in search of an alien response. But interstellar chat will be slow as signals take four years to travel between Earth and our nearest star at the speed of light.

Earlier this year, Dr Vakoch explained more about communicating with aliens. He told the BBC: “Life’s capacity for language astounds me, and it gives me hope. Hope that life orbiting around distant stars may also have the capacity for language and communication.

Experts are trying to help us communicate with aliens (stock) (Image: Getty Images)

“So the question is not, 'Do intelligent aliens exist?' but, 'Could we communicate with them?' In 1974, my friend the late Frank Drake (creator of the Drake Equation) sent a message to a distant cluster of stars from the largest radio telescope in the world, known today as the Arecibo message – the first radio message to aliens.

“Over the years I started to think of ways we could create and transmit a much wider range of new messages that could stand a better chance of being understood by intelligent lifeforms.

“If our messages are received, deciphered and replied to, we could receive a response in as little as a decade (if we are lucky). If extraterrestrials do get our messages, will they understand them?”

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