Description
Could we communicate with lifeforms on exoplanets? This thought-provoking book explores the likelihood of life and language beyond Earth.
About the Author
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
'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
Book Information
ISBN 9781009226417
Author Raymond Hickey
Format Hardback
Page Count 695
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 1110g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 160mm * 42mm