a) Babel fish,
b) a TARDIS,
c) telepathy, or
d) C-3PO.
I think the article explains it all better than I ever could:
…John Elliott of Leeds Metropolitan University believes he has come up with software which at least will decipher the structure of their language – and be the first step in understanding what they are saying.
Dr Elliott’s programme would compare an alien language to a database of 60 different languages in the world to search see if it has a similar structure.
It would work great at deciphering our own human languages to start with! Imagine having a universal translator pinned to your lapel!
Because languages have different word orders, Dr Elliott is amassing a library of the syntaxes of 60 human tongues.
If a message is received from outer space, it could be compared against this database. Scientists would then be able to see if it resembled anything human, or a mix of Earthly languages.
The tiny kink in the plan, of course, is that we receive a written alien language before a spoken one…
Mind you, Dr Elliott might just have the perfect people to contact to test his program. According to sci-fi site io9.com, there are people who specialize in building non-human languages:
they’re called conlangers, and they construct elaborate languages for fun or to make the portrait of an alien race more believable.
[...]
Conlangers include everyone from Marc Okrand, the linguist who wrote Klingon, to the nerds who invented the most perfectly logical language in the world, known as Lojban. Anthony Burgess invented a little conlang for his characters in Clockwork Orange, and Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue trilogy is all about a group of rebel women linguists who create their own language to subvert their ultra-sexist society. Sometimes Hollywood employs conlangers to make alien talk seem more realistic[...]
Now that sounds like a really fun job!
[Link: The Telegraph - Scientist develops programme to understand alien languages]
Sounds good to me. Makes me think of that chicky they had in Star Trek: Enterprise who had to actually go around translating the languages they encountered.
Of the other options I saw:
1. Babel fish — Ew factor! Unless it’s guppy-sized. I’m sure I could fit a guppy in there.
2. TARDIS — Mreow! Anything to be caught in a confined space with the Doctor *quiver*
3. Telepathy — Well I know I don’t have it. And what if it ends up exploding my head like it almost did to Buffy?
4. C3PO — Err, no. I don’t need some tin-man walking around telling me about how I’m doomed and how bad my odds of survival are
@Faranaaz: I’m not sure I needed to know about your sexual fantasies with the Doctor…
Don’t listen to him Faranaaz…in fact, I’ll trade fantasies with you!
Le Doctor is teh yummies!!
good god, get a room!!!
I was gonna just point out that Fayyaad, you’re not alien we can actual understand you you don’t need to give us translations, we have Salma for that