SETI bioastro: Babelfish - Universal Translator Will Allow ET to Speak English

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Babelfish - Universal Translator Will Allow ET to Speak English

Since 1966 people have been pointing at Star Trek and asking "How come all
the aliens speak English?" They go on to point out the impossibility of a
universal translator, make fun of the show and basically prove that they
couldn't have missed the point any harder if it was on the asteroid of
Pluto. Of course, the reason a magic device can let everyone talk to each
other is that forty-five minutes of people saying "I'm sorry, what?" is
terrible television. But recent advances at the University of California
might show that those nit-pickers aren't just petty-minded pedants, but
flat-out wrong.

Professor Terrence Deacon believes that all languages must have a common
universal structure. While there may be an infinite variety of means to
communicate, there are only a finite number of things communication tries to
do - the most fundamental of which is attempting to describe the physical
world. By homing in on this fundamental goal any two languages must have in
common, Professor Deacon believes it should be able to decode any
xenoliguistics, be they communicated by sounds, scents, numbers or
phllggQQ'arns.

Full article here:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/04/babelfish--univ.html

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