[3][4] A group of prominent linguists and animal communication scientists, including Noam Chomsky, have examined such hypothetical languages in the book Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language, edited by astrobiologist Douglas Vakoch and linguist Jeffrey Punske.
[9] Laurance Doyle and others have suggested an application of Zipf's law for detection of alien language in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
[10][11] Solomon W. Golomb posited that in order to gain the ability to build radio transmitters or other devices capable of interstellar communication, or any other technology beyond the most rudimentary tools, knowledge must be accumulated over the course of many generations.
Golomb further reasoned that since this requires that those who have learned knowledge from others can keep passing it on even after those who originally created the knowledge are dead, any beings capable of building civilizations must have an innate understanding that information retains its meaning no matter who utters it, and not block information out based on the generation of the messenger or deeming the same words acceptable or unacceptable depending on who utters them.
Golomb argued that this would create a common linguistic ground assisting humans with this ability in learning extraterrestrial languages.