Imagine dining in a European capital where you do not know the local language. The waiter speaks little English, but by hook or by crook you manage to order something on the menu that you recognise, eat and pay for. Now picture instead that, after a hike goes wrong, you emerge, starving, in an Amazonian village. The people there have no idea what to make of you. You mime chewing sounds, which they mistake for your primitive tongue. When you raise your hands to signify surrender, they think you are launching an attack.
Communicating without a shared context is hard. For example, radioactive sites must be left undisturbed for tens of thousands of years; yet, given that the English of just 1,000 years ago is now unintelligible to most of its modern speakers, agencies have struggled to create warnings to accompany nuclear waste. Committees responsible for doing so have come up with everything from towering concrete spikes, to Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, to plants genetically modified to turn an alarming blue. None is guaranteed to be future-proof.
Some of the same people who worked on these waste-site messages have also been part of an even bigger challenge: communicating with extraterrestrial life. This is the subject of “Extraterrestrial Languages”, a new book by Daniel Oberhaus, a journalist at Wired.
Nothing is known about how extraterrestrials might take in information. A pair of plaques sent in the early 1970s with Pioneer 10 and 11, two spacecraft, show nude human beings and a rough map to find Earth—rudimentary stuff, but even that assumes aliens can see. Since such craft have no more than an infinitesimal chance of being found, radio broadcasts from Earth, travelling at the speed of light, are more likely to make contact. But just as a terrestrial radio must be tuned to the right frequency, so must the interstellar kind. How would aliens happen upon the correct one? The Pioneer plaque gives a hint in the form of a basic diagram of a hydrogen atom, the magnetic polarity of which flips at regular intervals, with a frequency of 1,420MHz. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, the hope is that this sketch might act as a sort of telephone number. | Pata picha upo kwenye mgahawa mmojawapo huko Ulaya ambapo hujui lugha yao ya asili . Muhudumu anafahamu kuzungumza lugha ya kiingereza kidogo,unajitahidi kufanya kila namna ili kuweza kufanikiwa kuagiza chakula kimojawapo kati ya vilivyopo kwenye orodha ya chakula ambacho umekitambua.,unakula na kukilipia chakula hicho. picha linaloanza baada ya hapo ,baada ya kutembea kwa umbali umrefu ukawa umepotea njia, na ukagundua kuwa , una njaa, katika kijiji cha Amazoni . na wenyeji wa kijiji hicho hawajui wakuandalie nini kwa ajili yako. Unaiga sauti za kutafuna, ambazo hukosea kwa lugha yako ya zamani. Unapoinua mikono kuashiria kujisalimisha, wanafikiria unazindua shambulio. Mawasiliano yanatofautiana kutoka sehemu mja kwenda nyingine kulingana na mazingira, mfano mitambo ya redio inayorusha matangazo inapaswa kuwachwa bila kusumbuliwa kwa muda wa miaka elfu kumi, vivyo hivyo kuongea lugha ya kiingereza ya miaka kumi iliyopita kwa wakati huu inawaletea ugumu kwa wazungumzaji wa wakati huu, mashirika yamejitahidi kuunda maonyo ya kuandamana na taka za nyuklia. Kamati zinazohusika na kufanya hivyo zimekuja na kila kitu kutoka kwa spikes kubwa za zege, hadi Edvard Munch's "The Scream", kwa mimea iliyobadilishwa vinasaba kugeuza bluu ya kutisha. Hakuna aliyehakikishiwa kuwa uthibitisho wa baadaye. Baadhi ya watu wanaofanya kazi zinazohusiana na maeneo yanatumika kwa ajili ya kumwaga takataka wanapata changamoto :ya kuwasiliana katika mazingira magumu. hili somo linalotokana na "kutoelewekakwa lugha inayotumika kuwasiliana," kitabu kipya kilichoandikwa na Daniel Oberhaus, ambaye ni mwandishi wa Wired. Hakuna kinachojulikana kuhusu kwa gani namna wageni wanaweza kupata taarifa . Kuhusu vifaa viwili vilivyotumwa mwanzoni mwa miaka ya 1970 na watangulizi kati ya10 hadi 11, kuhusu vifaa viwili vya angani , vinavyoonesha wanadamu utupu wa dunia katika ramani kwa undani wake na hata jinsi kwa mwonekano ilivyojitenga. -baada ya vitu hivyo kuisha muda wake katika matumizi kutoka katika uso wa dunia na kutoonekana kabisa ,redio kutoka masafa ya mbali ,zilisafiri kwa mwendo na mwanga mkali,kwa na malengo ya kuja kukutana . kama iivyo kwa redio za masafa ya mbali zinatakiwa kuahswa kwenye frikwensi sahihi, |