The universal
translator is a classic Star Trek plot device that makes encounters with
alien civilizations much less awkward. "Alienese" goes in and
American English comes out — at least on television in 1967.
But that's just television. When a Professor of Biological
Anthropology and Linguistics starts talking about it, however, that's something
worth taking a closer look at.
Terrence Deacon of the University of California, Berkeley, posits that all language has a universal structure. Regardless of whether the
aliens communicate with sounds, pictures or even odors, there must be a set of
rules that govern the communication.
Professor Deacon argues that even abstract symbols can be
understood as referencing words that point directly to real objects in the physical
world we all share. If that is true, it should be possible to have a device
that uses software to tease apart the symbols of a completely alien language
and then determine how they reference the world;
clipped from: www.space.com