Can We Think without Language?

When I was doing my postgraduate course, I posed a seemingly simple question to my teacher in a Linguistic class: "Can we think without language?" I guess that language has become the sixth sense in differentiating us from animals, birds and plants, despite their being credited with minimal communication efficiency. Language is more rooted in our body than in mind. Humans have been expressing thoughts with language for around a thousand and thousand years. It is the hallmark of human species and also this is the difference between humans and animals. As per an estimation of the number of human language in the world vary between 5,000 and 7,000. Here a quote 'Necessity is the mother of Innovation ' comes to my mind. And we have been wondering about each other's thoughts for as long as we could talk about them.

           Some people think visually or in colour. It is like a chattering of noise almost but tic is a complex series of ideas and concepts.

There are many cognitive activities. And it was performed by humans on a continual basis that didn't necessarily involve language. For example :- intend, desire etc. Also in sports and games activities, humans are performing tasks such as hitting baseball or executing a crossover dribble, there is nothing demonstrating. No language is needed to feel anger, sadness, anguish love , confusion, lust, and to host other emotions.

        There are vocal sounds which express ideas that can be expressions by onlookers. Facial expressions have meanings, sometimes it is only known to the person behind the faces. Humans would certainly struggle to communicate complex thoughts without language. For example, What would be the condition if we didn't have names for things? What would our thoughts be like without language? Language is so immensely embedded in almost every corner of the way we interact with the world. In many cases we use language in our thinking, even though we don't speak aloud. Many artists describe their own inner process while they work, saying they do not use words to solve problems, but images. They use images in order to explore their views. There are people who lack the ability to use language and think in another way. There is also evidence that deaf people are cut off from language spoken or signed. They think in sophisticated ways before they have been exposed to language.

           Humans would certainly struggle to communicate complex thoughts without language. If you are asked to tell about the last bed that you have lied to. You may think about the texture, materials, what is the height, whether it is hard or comfortable cotton and whatever other details it might have had. There you may develop a vivid image of the bed in your mind. Have it?

         Actually we don't think in any language, we communicate with yourself in a language.Thinking comprises of formless images or stateless events occurring in our minds. There might not be any particular language. 

        A child is born with with no language but slowly begins to develop language even before the use of words. One of the most important accomplishments of this stage in object permanence.This means that a child understands the object before do not just disappear if they cannot be seen or heard and that they still continue to exist.This was very interesting that I was always wondered if a child thought I was really gone while playing peekaboo.I know now that a younger infant really does believe Iam gone, while an older infant has learned that Iam still there….

           Oscar Wilde called language “the parent, and not the child, of thought.” Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” And Bertrand Russell stated that the role of language is “to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it."

        Here comes the conclusion for the question ' Is it possible to think without language ? The answer, surprisingly, is yes, several decades of research has found. Hurlburt's studies, for instance, have shown that some people do not have an inner monologue. They don't talk to themselves in their heads.

Ms. Rimshana, Assistant Professor of English, Al Shifa College of Arts and Science, Kizhattoor, Perinthalmanna