Why not? Is there any reason you couldn't express "go straight forward about 50 feet" in Martian? I assume Martians will inhabit space and time and so will understand directions.
The lexicon and structure of human thought is to a large extent derived from the world, which is the same whether you are a human being or a hypothetical Martian or a lion. I sometimes get the feeling on reading e.g. Wittgenstein that he thought that nonhuman entities were wholly other, some sort of Lovecraftian extradimensional entities. Which I suppose follows from looking at language as the exclusive generator of meaning (if I am not presenting Wittgenstein etc. absurdly crudely).
----- Original Message ---- From: Matthias Wasser <matthias.wasser at gmail.com>
If an alien could speak, would we understand it?
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