How can one think if they know no language to think in? Suppose someone was raised in the wild like you sometimes hear happens, and knows no human language, how would they process thought? Since I speak English, I think in English. I cannot contemplate how I thought before I learned English as a baby or how anyone who doesn’t know a language can think. Would they think in pictures?
My best theory on the matter is using the analogy that thought is merely an operating system for the mind, that thoughts are much more simple than language dictates them to be, but is translated into a language for easier understanding. I have come to this conclusion because I realized that I know the outcome of a thought before I can fully articulate it; I know where a thought’s going sometimes but can’t finish it fully in English in my head, but I know what the idea was. Any thoughts on this?
Secondly, why would one need language when we essentially run on instincts? Aside from getting into a long blurb on language acquisition, if you were raised by the wolved don’t you think you would be driven by instinct to hunt, drink, sleep, play with your little wolf buddies?
When you are eating are you thinking to yourself “oh this cinnamon role is so sticky, sweet, cinnamony, warm, crusty, soft, spiral, maluable etc…etc…”
no. Because you are eating and not putting words to what you are crushing between your teeth and letting your throat swallow. You are eating. food critics exempt from the "no"
I can see this response could get horrifically long so why not go do a google search for language acquisition and for the evolution of cognitive processes.
Sorry, must disagree with this. After twenty years in medicine, I’ve clearly concluded that the heart’s purpose is to pump blood thruout the system. It’s also well demonstrated that thoughts arise in that central nervous system locus conventionally referred to as the brain. And thoughts can be completely independent of language.
Couldn’t one develop their own thought process, in the sense that perhaps “gilburga” means “tree,” etc.?
I thought I’d heard a story about two sisters who had been locked away from any human contact for their entire childhood, and not only had they developed their own language (they had to communicate!) they also had specific emotional reactions - that is, when we’re sad, we cry, but they did something completely different.
“IMHO language can be used to articulate emotion and nothing more. In discussion it is the spirit of the thing that is important.”
If that were true then language would be pretty useless as we can communicate emotion fairly accurately without it. You don’t think language would be useful for discussing hunting strategy? Describing where you found water? Etc,etc,etc.
I think thoughts would have been more image/motion oriented and less complex or abstract.