Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence #2 -

"Lingua Cosmica." A language for extraterrestrial communication developed by Hans Freudenthal, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Utrecht. Details of it are presented in Freudenthal's book¹ published in the Netherlands in 1960.

LINCOS represents an extension of the logistic language of mathematics developed by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. It is intended to be conveyed by unmodulated radio signals of varying duration and wavelength which represent phonemes. The signals would be combined to make up concepts or words.

Lancelot Hogben, who himself described a code for communication with alien intelligence, called Astraglossa, discussed Freudenthal's work.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Sciemce

Chapter III: Behaviour

3 00 1. For the time being it would be premature to try to describe

human behaviour by a system of general rules like the mathematical

and chronometric rules of the preceding chapters and some of the

mechanical laws of the next chapter.  Instead we shall show behavior

by quasi-regular examples, from which the receiver may derive as

many general behaviour rules as he pleases.
...
3 00 2. As the program events are to display behaviour, it is necessary

for at least part of them to be acts, i.e. caused by persons.

Our Lincos vocabulary is still far from sufficient for introducing the

bodies of the acting persons.  So the only kind of act that can be displayed

immediately is the act of speaking.  The Lincos word that designates this

activity, is written Inq (fL inquit = says). The terrestrial reader should

guard against a too narrow interpretation of this 'Inq'.

In the present chapter the physical background of the Inq-events,

whether it be accoustical or optical or tactile or anything else, will remain undiscernable.
...
3 00 3. The names of the dramatis personae will be written Ha, Hb, Hc,
 and so on.  In due course we will state that these persons are
 members of the set called Hom (fL homo = man) in written Lincos.

3 00 4. Our theatre is still incomplete.  Besides persons and acts a third
 thing is needed.  We have been able to build a vocabulary of
 mathematics without valuating our propositions.  We had only to
 confine ourselves to true propositions.  The falsehood of 1=2 could
 be formulated as 1<>2.  Yet we cannot show behaviour by good
 actions only.  We must stage bad ones too, if we wish to condemn
 them.  We have to create a vocabulary that contains words meaning
 "good" and "bad" and intermediate valuations.
   To begin with, we shall stick to two values.  Of course they
 cannot be 'Ver' and 'Fal', which are values of propositions.  What
 we wish to valuate are acts, not propositions.  (We are not here
 considering value-judgements of esthetics.)
   Our valuating words will be written Ben (fL bene = well) and
 Mal (fL male = badly).  They mean "good" and "bad" respectively.

LINCOS: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse Hans Freudenthal

Journal of an Airman

I. three signs of an airman: practical jokes nervousness before taking off rapid healing after injury three kinds of enemy walk: the grandious stunt the melancholic stagger the paranoic sidle three kinds of enemy bearing: the condor's stoop the toad's stupor the robin's stance three kinds of enemy face: the fucked hen the favorite puss the stone-in-the-rain three terms of enemy speech: I mean quite frankly speaking as a scientist etcetera three enemy questions: am I boring you? could you tell me the time? are you sure you're fit enough? three results of an enemy victory: impotence cancer paralysis three counterattacks complete mastery of the air lastly but ten it's moving again lastly but nine I forgot the sign lastly but eight it's getting late lastly but seven why aren't there eleven? lastly but six I dont like its ...tricks the maid is just dribbling tea and I shall not be disturbed until supper...

Rising Five

"I'm rising five" he said "Not four" and the little coils of hair Un-clicked themselves upon his head. His spectacles, brimful of eyes to stare At me and the meadow, reflected cones of light Above his toffee-buckled cheeks. He'd been alive Fifty-six months or perhaps a week more; Not four But rising five. Around him in the field, the cells of spring Bubbled and doubled; buds unbuttoned; shoot And stem shook out the creases from their frills, And every tree was swilled with green. It was the season after blossoming, Before the forming of the fruit: Not May But rising June. And in the sky The dust dissected the tangential light: Not day But rising night; Not now But rising soon. The new buds push the old leaves from the bough. We drop our youth behind us like a boy Throwing away his toffee-wrappers. We never see the flower, But only the fruit in the flower; never the fruit, But only the rot in the fruit. We look for the marriage bed...

From an even more defunct blog

Silver in the Moonlight Chapter One “Between the lighthouse and the hills At the crossroads that none can see When the moon is full, through the eye in the stone Turn east to come to me” Tom woke struggling to breathe, as though his sleep had been ended by some large beast leaping on his chest. His room was dark, lit only by the dim starlight through his window, and the only sound was the heaving of his chest. As his panic slowly ebbed away he struggled to hold onto the one thing he knew to be important from the dream that had caused it – the clear, unarguable knowledge that in moonlight blood looked like molten silver. The next day, he rose after spending the rest of the night trying to sleepily sort through the feelings this dream fragment had left him with. Fear certainly, but also a strange kind of exultation, as though he has been given a piece of knowledge that few others possessed and fewer still could use. That idea brought him to a halt as he absently pulled on...

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