For Scientific American's Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.

One quick heads-up, this episode features some spoilers for Project Hail Mary.

If there's one thing that the many, many viewers of the movie Project Hail Mary seem to agree on, it's that the alien character known as Rocky is an absolute delight.

In the adaptation of Andy Weir's novel about a biologist-turned-teacher who finds himself burdened with a mission to save Earth, translation software gives Rocky a charmingly wry voice with which to communicate with the main character, Ryland Grace.

But while Rocky's text-to-speech persona is used to great dramatic and comedic effect in the film, his native language is also worth a listen.

This complex music-based communication system wasn't treated as an afterthought.

Two experts in the field of constructed language actually, you know, constructed his language.

So what does it take to communicate using musical notes, and how would Rocky's mother tongue actually work?

Here to tell us all about it is Allison Parshall, an associate editor for Mind and Brain at Scientific American.

Allison, thanks so much for joining us today.