6 Unusual “Alien” Languages Designed by Linguistic Experts

Although humanity has yet to encounter extraterrestrial life, some linguists have speculated about how aliens might communicate. These experts have developed constructed languages, or conlangs, envisioning how alien languages, known as exolangs, could function. Unlike languages created for pop culture, such as Klingon from Star Trek, these exolangs are designed to explore the boundaries of language, facilitate potential interstellar communication, or simply serve as creative experiments.

1. Fith

While many exolangs follow universal principles of human grammar, Jeffrey Henning aimed to create a language that defied these norms. Inspired by postfix notation calculators and the programming language Forth, Fith employs a Last-In-First-Out stack structure. This unique approach means words are spoken long before their meaning or role in a sentence is determined, making it impossible for humans to comprehend spoken Fith in real time.

Fith’s structure requires words to be processed in reverse order, a task manageable in writing but beyond human capability in speech due to memory constraints. Additionally, spoken Fith incorporates hand signals, which humans cannot replicate since Fithians possess two thumbs on each hand and are marsupial-like beings.

Here’s an illustration from Fith: Zhong hong lin lo, which directly translates to “nation man loyal of.” The arrangement of words in the stack—zhong at the bottom and lo at the top—defines their relationships. Adjectives modify the noun directly beneath them, so lin (“loyal”) above hong (“man”) means “loyal man.” With a postposition like lo (“of”), the closest noun below it precedes it, while the second-closest follows. Thus, it becomes loyal man of [the] nation. While this four-word phrase is manageable to translate and reorder mentally, complexity increases dramatically with longer stacks.

A visual depiction of this stack is available on the website of linguist David J. Peterson, known for crafting languages for films and series like Game of Thrones and The Witcher. Peterson presents the annual Smiley Award for outstanding conlangs, with Fith winning in 2019.

Jörg Rhiemeier developed a streamlined version of Fith, named Shallow Fith, which humans can speak (though it might seem simplistic to Fithians). Shallow Fith eliminates many grammatical connectors and restricts stack depth.

2. Rikchik

Denis Moskowitz envisioned Rikchik as the language of rikchiks, fictional green, one-eyed aliens from a planet in Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to Earth, located just over four light-years away. These rikchiks are deaf but possess 49 tentacles, seven of which function as arms, allowing them to communicate through sign language.

Humans, lacking the required number of limbs, could only interact with these beings using Rikchik’s logographic written system. Each Rikchik word consists of four components: the “morpheme” (core meaning) in the center, the “aspect” (indicating verb, place, animate, or inanimate) in the bottom left, the “collector” (showing word connections) in the bottom right, and the “relation” (similar to grammatical case) at the top.

Unlike human sign language, which relies on gesture motion for meaning, Rikchik signs are static (though Moskowitz mentioned at the 2009 Language Creation Conference that he hasn’t ruled out motion entirely). Rikchik earned the 2012 Smiley Award, with Peterson remarking that it’s rare to encounter a conlang so uniquely divergent from the norm.

3. Dritok

Dritok, developed by Don Boozer, originated from a simple thought: “Could a language mimic the chipping sounds of a chipmunk?” Boozer demonstrated its feasibility, though the outcome is far from straightforward. Dritok is a voiceless, vowel-less language relying on clicks, hisses, snorts, and fricatives instead of vocal cord vibrations. When asked by Michael Norman of cleveland.com about the vowels in Dritok, Boozer clarified that it’s how neighboring cultures would pronounce it.

Dritok is used by Drusheks, creatures without vocal cords, featuring large tails and exceptional leaping abilities. Another species, Tylnor, has a phonetic system closer to human speech, leading to two transcription methods. Phonetic-Gestural Transcription (PGT) closely mirrors Dritok as spoken by Drusheks, while Umod Phonetic Transcription (UPT) adapts it for humans and Tylnors. The language’s name is tr’.z*w in PGT and dry.tok in UPT [PDF].

Hand gestures, with 50 variations, are another key aspect of Dritok. Written in uppercase, a full sentence appears as: “tr’w.cq.=P4=C3^Q3-pln.t’.” (“The Drushek, he holds a cloak.”) At the 2007 Language Creation Conference, Boozer provided a demonstration of the language’s unique sounds.

4. Lincos

Lingua francas serve as communication bridges between people with different native languages, such as Plains Indian Sign Language. Mathematician Hans Freudenthal expanded this concept by developing a lingua cosmica, or Lincos, designed to facilitate communication with extraterrestrial beings.

Freudenthal outlined his groundbreaking math-based language in his 1960 book, Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse. Lincos starts by transmitting numerical pulses, like “·” for 1 and “· ·” for 2, followed by basic mathematical symbols. For instance, “· · > ·” conveys 2 is greater than 1. The complexity increases until extraterrestrials can grasp advanced concepts, including human emotions like love.

A limitation of this cosmic language, as acknowledged by its creator, is that the alien must possess a “humanlike mental state.” While this may seem ambitious, astrobiologist Charles Cockell argues in The Equations of Life: How Physics Shapes Evolution (2018) that universal physical laws shape evolution, suggesting extraterrestrial life might resemble Earth’s. However, this isn’t universally accepted; evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, for example, believed life could take infinite forms, as he stated in The New York Times in 1989.

Despite this, Lincos has been used in real messages sent into space by SETI scientists. Astrophysicist Stéphane Dumas explained to The Atlantic in 2016 that mathematics is the ideal metalanguage, as it underpins science, which any advanced civilization would understand. Dumas and Yvan Dutil transmitted Lincos-inspired radio signals into space in 1999 and 2003.

5. iljena

Peter Bleackley’s alien language, iljena, draws inspiration from Sylvia Sotomayor’s Kēlen, another exolang. While Kēlen is often labeled a verbless language, it actually separates the syntactic and semantic roles of verbs. Bleackley took a different approach, designing iljena so that every noun also functions as a verb.

At the 2015 Language Creation Conference, Bleackley described the speakers of iljena, called “Leyen,” as beings with “sensory hairs—vibrissae—covering their bodies, akin to cats’ whiskers.” This feature makes them acutely sensitive to airflow changes, leading them to perceive themselves as “immersed in a dynamic world.” Consequently, “everything is in action, and their language’s structure mirrors this worldview.”

In iljena, the noun component of a word is a triconsonantal root, inspired by Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew, which Leyen consider the word’s body. Vowels are inserted between these consonants to form the verb (or spirit) of the word. For instance, iljena combines the noun ljn (“Leyen”) with the verb pattern i12e3a (“speak”). Bleackley notes on his website that Leyen view human words as “corpses and ghosts” because their word bodies and spirits are separate.

6. aUI

Austrian psychoanalyst Wolfgang John Weilgart’s language, aUI, traces back to his childhood, when he reportedly had a vision of an alien communicating in a language of pure semantic clarity. During the 1930s and ’40s, as Nazi propaganda spread across Germany, Weilgart observed—and disapproved of—how slogans used associative sounds to manipulate people subconsciously. For example, in the phrase Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer! (“One People, One Nation, One Leader!”), the word Volk sounds like folg, meaning “follow” or “obey.”

Weilgart envisioned a transparent language free from the inconsistencies of sound-meaning misalignment—such as homophones not always sharing meanings—to help his patients achieve mental clarity. In a 1958 issue of International Language Review, he introduced aUI, a language he claimed could be mastered in hours, even by extraterrestrials. He referred to it as “the language of space.”

aUI consists of 31 symbols representing fundamental concepts, which can be combined to form new meanings. For instance, the language’s name, aUI (pronounced “ah-oo-ee”), or “O△~,” translates to “space-mind-sound,” with mind-sound combining to mean “language.” Weilgart elaborated on aUI in his books Cosmic Elements of Meaning (1975) and aUI: The Language of Space (1979).