Does thought require language?

[annabananna]

[Rosexøxø]

No, it does not, and with a specification/alteration, it does.

Let me say why it doesn’t.

Children who don’t read or speak- still think.

The mute and silent who can read, don’t speak, and they still think.

People of DIFFERENT languages don’t speak just one and yet they can think quite efficiently for themselves.

Thought will always happen if language is not established.

Lack of language is a real limitation, though.

Now I’ll say why it does require language

I say:

ADVANCED thoughts require language

because due to language, we have the luxury of talking to others and that allows the phenomenon of brainstorming.

The effects of hearing ourselves think out loud, at times, also does prove to be helpful,

and the very fact that language helps us to describe certain things about life and ourselves,

helps us to relate this to others,

So they understand us-

and so it helps us better understand ourselves and the world.

Words have helped us come very far, in the fact we have been able to describe things like A. I.; The metaverse; light years;

Photosynthesis. Metamorphosis.

Igneous rock. 🌋

Things below earth; things cosmically out of it. 🪐☄️✨🌌

All these things are not so tangible, yet nevertheless, Still accurate. Still factual. Still reality,

and words help us where those cave paintings would fail us-

a picture is a thousand words,

but many times the words would be *missed* and *varied* based on *perspective* on the different “beholders of [logical] beauty.”

“We were always fated” to invent language/ dialect, instead of having

social cues, only, and pictures.

Pictures are the outside view. Language and dialect is what helps us go deeper.

It is only because of language that mankind has gotten this far..

in being able to describe, identify, recall, and remember the things labeled and titled.

A phrase like:

“Experiencing G-Force.”

or

“They moved their troops to the western front, around midnight.”

Is what helps us advance.

Militaries thrived and excelled with the helps of MESSAGES from spies. That’s the use of language to win a war.

Inventors used nothing, but language, in verbal and written form to advance innovation, and theirs was so complex that pictures were also needed, along with live/real time conducted studies, to prove or disprove something.

Cases in court are never won by silent staring and social cues, or pictures, but speech.

The jury can’t make their decision without the necessary sharing of verbal evidence, and any described photographic/video-documented evidence, and extra objects.

Language takes us so much further. It’s accelerates our growth as a society.

The abstract is important, and being able to describe is important.

That can only be done with language.

News reporters always get their stories and do visual research, and such, and all of that helps people and viewers to really understand what’s taking place.

It’s why we have commentators at games- not just the entertainment factor, but to explain things and call out if something was a foul, and when and why, there would be a (need for a) replay.

Referees even get their chances at the mics, at times, to call out why they speak out on one or a few of the players- for the specific misconduct, and all of that.

No one ever went on a date without language, and instead solely just pictures and social cues.

Language accelerates humanity, and that is why a genius like Stephen Hawking would go out of his way to enable a speech engine with his fingers, so he could communicate with others.

(Speech synthesizer).

Any time people believed animals could communicate, they believed them to be far more intelligent, than once believed.

Humans can communicate in more ways than one, and speech will be by far the most helpful (of those options).

So in summary:

Thought does not require language.

But

Advanced thought does require language.

*We would’ve never got this far, and at this rate, if it were NOT for language.*

Language was even used to write answers to this question you had.

The questions are just as necessary to intelligence- and that’s the fact- a question could never be painted or printed in an image.

The question mark (despite its drawn form) is a grammatical statement, and piece. Scientists questioned. Innovators questioned.

YOU questioned.

Describing, recalling, and explaining would never be… if it were not for the question.

Memes are even useless, without the words and captions, to describe the emotions or events taking place.

So I think for now.. these are all the examples I should give.

I hope the answer was made pretty clear.

[Rosexøxø]

Thanks for such a fun question, and sorry for spam! 😊👐

[annabananna]

Thanks for a well thought out answer

[Rosexøxø]

Yes thought out and colloquially written 😁👍

[jennifer_bloom]

I believe structure is needed to maintain healthy emotion and semantic language mimics thought structure but is characterized differently from thought structure. However, emotions can exist as a natural impulse or reaction outside of all mental or linguistic thinking structures but gut reactions are normally not good responses unless they’ve been intentionally trained or willingly taught and passed on. Spontaneous reaction might be a product of energy and not calculated strategy.

[NathanDavis]

very interesting question...

what is language though? basically, communication... whether is as heavily structured as an entire nation's spoken and written language... or as "simple" as signs and gestures of group of people, they both work as well and the same... two or more people are able to convey and understand each other ideas through communication of a common language

and what are thoughts? the concept of thoughts are not so simple and not so basic... and for most theorists it does refer to a more abstract and also a higher level of mental processes that are also systematic and methodical which, would include some sort of language or representation of concepts themselves

so, I do think that cognition would be a "lesser" or earlier form of mental processes that are more based on perception, sensations, ideas, realizations, intuition (others) which would lead to an understanding and to learning... without necessarily depending on a structured language but then someone along the way, we would start to acquire the basis of knowledge, so then, this knowledge is what either resulted or prompted the necessity of a higher level of thinking, which is the categorizations of experiences through a mean, and I think that was language... and thoughts

[Rosexøxø]

I like the use of common language and the claim of a higher level of thinking.

Really like how you went about in answering this. Nice word choice. Makes sense to me 😊👍

[annabananna]

You two should write a book lol

[NathanDavis]

dibs on the name of the book... it shall be called

~ The Brain Named Itself...

[Rosexøxø]

@annabananna lol nathan Davis named himself 😆. Book writing isn’t my forte. I think I’d leave that to those of the likes of Nathan and the keen observers such as yourself. Observers make really profound writers 😊👍

Many different avenues with this.

But thank you’d for the compliment! I’ll cherish it and try to live up to such a standard ☝️😁

[NathanDavis]

~The Book of Natalie...

[AmeerX]

Can you explain it a little?

On its face value it seems thought does require a language. I think our language even reflects our personality. Some words in my language are unavailable in the English language. While somethings available in Russian seem foreign to me. I think language is made by people for communication but first speakers made language to suit there thoughts to communicate and then once the language got old it started to shape thoughts of future generations to more dogmatic ways.

[annabananna]

I was about to ask what words aren’t available in English but I guess you can’t answer that lol.

[AmeerX]

I can try. For instance, you don't say the same expression like
How is water? You say cold or hot. Yes
But casually we just say, water is ice 😅.
You say my stomach is full, we say my stomach is filled.

Then, there is the expression, oh that girls hairs look like a snakes body. meaning thereby they are beautiful. We have this word Kakul clumps of hair looking like a snake. You know like those of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin.

So, quite a lot of differences in expressing beautiful. Oh her face is like the moon. Meaning it's beautiful.

And then there is honorifics.
Like for one person you say you, or thee. We use Tum or aap. We use aap for plural second person too but it is more polite and formal.

[TheorionMage]

Human's FIRST 'language' is normally VISUAL personal experience
becoming subjective thought. Thought must be conveyed through SHARED experience.
VERBAL language is merely mutually-agreed-upon-meaning SOUNDS.
Hence, the 'worth' of dictionaries and thesauruses representing those sounds..
'Words' are like auditory wax crayons.
The broader your SHARED vocabulary the more 'crayons' and subtlety of THOUGHT you can communicate PROVIDING the Listener SHARES the meanings.
Elsewise, its JUST uncomprehended 'noise'.

[dynamicyandere]

I would say… Thought doesn’t require language. But language is required for the communication, articulation, and sharing of thoughts from one being to another.


I think of reactions to danger for example.


If someone is sitting by a body of water, reading a book, and then a alligator suddenly lunges at them from out of the water, they will likely think a thought that corresponds with DANGER or THREAT, but it’s happening so fast that they aren’t really speaking out the words or thinking about those words in a linguistic sense through internal dialogue, it’ll just be the raw thought that appears in their mind before they react with a fight/flight/freeze response.

[mstbooblover]

Very interesting and difficult question. Having observed animals since a very long time, and taking into account they also have their own forms of language, I know for sure they think. Every behaviour can't be reduced to instinct only. Just observe a hunting cat. Sure hunting is an instinct, but everything the cat does in order to observe, approach and catch a prey, requires a form of thought, a direct one, without language.

I guess the real difference resides in the fact that "thinking" without words happens in a far more direct way. Translating thoughts into words may help humans to clarify topics, but also makes the process slower. Some forms of meditation consist exactly to stop thinking with words... Just keep in mind the example of the hunting cat.

[RolandCuthbert]

I am sure it doesn't. Consciousness does not require language. While we still have not decided are we "real" or just some emergent phenomena. We can communicate with newborns long before they learn any language. And we know they "think" or are conscious.

[annabananna]

Newborns have protothoughts which are based on sensations.

[RolandCuthbert]

I am not sure what a protothought is. But it would be like claiming consciousness does not exist unless you speak a language. And that is not true. We have a concept of our environment long before we can describe it with "words". We know a tree, we know water, we know cold, heat, etc. . . all without words. And we can figure out how to describe what we want or whatever.

There is an interesting experiment where a newborn is looking at his father. When his father smiles and plays with him, he smiles and plays back.

But when his father stops and does not give him any feedback, he becomes frustrated, angry or starts to cry.

[Finchie40]

Yes it would have to be honestly , cuz even if we weren’t taught language our brains would adapt to some kind of language or sound from what we see or hear so it’s definitely some kind of language doesn’t necessarily have to be a language everyone else knows about , look at the cave man times I am sure a cave man dreamnt about banging some girl over the head with a club and taking her back to his cave to have his way with her lol He couldn’t speak to her so he just hit her over the head and took her lol

[Lliam]

I think thought came before language, which means that thought doesn't require language. But language certainly facilitates transfer of knowledge and more and more and more thought. And the knowledge compounds.

[Rosexøxø]

Love this. So simply said, yet it just summarizes the complex truth about it. You summarized it well. 😊👍

[Lliam]

Thank you, Rosexøxø

[Rosexøxø]

Ofc 😊👍

[Red-Blaze]

Yes, and no
Depends what you count as langrage
I mean a PC langrage is 0 or 1, on or off, same with the brain sending electric, so is that a langrage?
Or dose this mean a spoken/Gensture langrage?
In that case then no its not needed, as to understand and learn you have to think and to there for learn a langrage you need to think before you know langrage

Regardless great qruestion

[NamerOfStars]

Other way around. Using language- even recognizing what a "word" is- requires thought.

[Rosexøxø]

Very true

[SlothySlob]

No, the majority of the perceived information is processed visually.

[Rosexøxø]

That is fact

[annabananna]

That’s what I was saying

[Adam1978]

No or yes the brain will have its own native language until it's learned to use an external. So no common language is needed. But without communication and shared language the person will have limited intelligence in many areas since some concepts of thoughts doesn't always come by themselves.

[RavVid]

I think abstract thought does because we think in terms of related concepts which are named things. We use language to convey and learn concepts.

On the other hand Phoar! she's hot or Holy Shit this dangerous I think don't does. It is more visceral and not so abstract but conveying these experience would be abstract and use language to convey.

[DoctorSex]

Nope.

Chicken and egg type question.

One needed thought in order to create language.

Kind regards,

DoctorSex

[andreasderjuengere]

I (once again) asked my dogs. They transmitted the thought that language is not always required.

[FreyaRed]

If you're capable of internal dialogue is language necessary. Furthermore if you're multilingual, language of your inner dialogue depends on your emotional state.

[The_Shadow_Dweller]

Yes and no. Because you form the idea mainly without any language, but at the same time, you are converting it in a language for you to tell other people. So, yesss, both yay and nay.

[Anonymous]

It depends on the subject, anything abstract would require language and control of language is control of thought.

[annabananna]

“Control of language is control of thought.” What does that mean?

[Opinion Owner]

The media controls both the narrative (the story of the world, how it is presented to you, what you are told to think and care about) and how words are defined (by changing the defintion of words you change how subjects and events are perceiveved, especially to the uninitiated.)

Perhaps the best example of abusing language to control thought is when looking at proxy wars.

When we funnel money into militant groups in order to destabilise governments overseas who are not following an agenda we approve of the media will describe those people as 'freedom fighters' the government we dont like will be called 'a regime'. If the exact same thing were happening but you alter our prefered outcome or interests then 'freedom fighters' become 'terrorists' and 'a regime' becomes 'a democracy' or similar.

[Opinion Owner]

Look at some of the words which have had their meanings distorted or changed in recent years:

Antivaxer used to refer to a tiny fringe group of hard core religious people in the States who were refusing to have their children vaccinated against measles mumps and rubella. Here is another term, 'misinformation' there was a lot of misinformation / bad information going around in this group of people and their beliefs and fears had no basis in reality. That term, anti vaxxer, was then radically expanded during covid to describe people such as myself who simply did not consider it to be in their best interests to take an untested or poorly tested completely new technology created by people who had total immunity against any kind of consequence of their potential failure including for example gross negligence, a vaccine which at best was offering me a short window of partial protection against a virus which posed almost no risk to me personally what so ever. These are clearly radically different situations and unlike the previous 'anti vaxxers' I and other people who chose not to be vaccinated were standing on solid ground with perfectly justifiable and scientifically sound reasons for not wanting to take the vaccine but the media presented us as criminals, murderers, dangerous hateful morons.

[Opinion Owner]

The term misinformation has also been distorted, the dictionary will tell you that it means bad or incorrect information but that is not how it is most often used by the media, they use it to describe anything which is not aligned with the agenda they are promoting.

Fake news is another term, originally it was used to describe comedy shows like the onion or memes which were clearly and only jokes. Then it started to be used to describe voices which told a different story to the mainstream media, someone like David Icke for example who was by the way deplatformed during covid for spreading 'fake news' when no such thing was happeningn in reality. In realty all that was happening was that people were asking questions or making comments like 'is the lockdown and vaccine etc in all of our interests' or whatever, >insert whatever reasonable enquiry which is a healthy and necessary component of a functioning democracy here<.

[annabananna]

Ohh ok I get what you mean now

[Andres77]

It does if one wants to be exact... I'd never considered that before. Without language it just seems like emotion.

[BeMuse]

No it does not. Languages are inventions used to communicate.

[BeMuse]

language is a social construct. People are able to think all on their own. They don't need other people for that.

[TaureanBull81]

Not necessarily @annabananna as we use non-verbal cues to convey messages as well.

[Rosexøxø]

That is fact

[TaureanBull81]

It certainly is @Rosexøxø aka Mystique 😉👌

[Rosexøxø]

Knowing someone noticed and recognized this makes me smile. Thanks a bunch 😁👐

[TaureanBull81]

You'rewelcome @Rosexøxø
Mystique was 🔥 in X-Men.

[Rosexøxø]

Indeed ☝️😁

[Mangospacho]

It’s either your own language or a spoken language. If it’s your own language, then it has to be translated into words and sometimes it can’t be translated into words.

[HaveNoName]

Perhaps it continues in the language you were talking in or reading in. But its always a tough one to answer accurately, specially if you are bilingual.

[Shy_Steve]

That's Interesting, I think they do sometimes and sometimes they don't.

But either way thoughts can be powerful.

[Rosexøxø]

Very true!

[CAPTAIN-OBVIOUS]

Nope, what about dogs? They are able to have thoughts.

[Guffrus]

Dogs famously cannot see what humans are pointing at.

[Rosexøxø]

True! And yet we are the superior species. I’m not even sure how wolves developed their hunting strategy and hierarchy without words, though. That is quite the phenomenon- as well as killer whales and dolphins in how they hunt together.

[Dargil]

Excellent, well thought out question. I think the answer is yes.

[msc545]

You can think without speaking, but you should never speak without thinking first.

[Rosexøxø]

Wise proverb

[msc545]

@Rosexøxø actually I just made it up so maybe not so great...

[Rosexøxø]

No it definitely counts. It relates to the judean/Christian biblical test of be slow to speak and quick to listen.
I feel like I have heard some people or christians say think before you speak. If no one has said it in that way or this way, I definitely see this being a famous quote because it’s a wise message.

Actually, how you word it is very nice

[msc545]

@Rosexøxø thanks!

[nawtee_me]

For me to process it yes. If my thoughts were in another language then I would not be able to process it.

[Sparkie460]

No it doesn't. People who can't talk can still think

[NathanDavis]

people who can't talk can still communicate through a language... of signs, gestures and more

[Sparkie460]

I mean verbal language.

[Anonymous]

Yes I'd say so. Because my first language is Italian and although I speak mostly English ( because of where I live) all my thoughts are in Italian, not English

[Aerissa_Jade]

I think is colors and aura's, so I'd say no.

[Revvl6pro]

No, but it certainly helps.

[Rollingstones84]

When you're thinking to yourself, usually your vocalizing stuff in your head, so I'd say so

[PatriceONeal]

Yes obviously. There is no meaning without definition.

[Twalli]

No, but language is required for the transfer of knowledge

[ArtemisSilver]

No, but language shapes thought.

[Rosexøxø]

Precisely! In one sentence too

[Bklynbadboy12]

Abstract not thought does not require language

[Bklynbadboy12]

I meant to write absolutely not cause I think all the time and not utter a word

[annabananna]

Do you think more in words or picture?

[Bklynbadboy12]

Pictures cause I picture it in my mind

[loveslongnails]

I don't believe so.

[serious]

The answer is No.

[Summeroflove]

Of some kind I think yes

[barn_stormer]

impossible to say but I don't think it does

[Tyrael]

No it doesn't.

[Sevenpointfive]

not at all

[Smoothing]

I would say yes

[bean2k21]

No comment.

[Danny_dan92]

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Nope, but it does help organize your thoughts.

[Rosexøxø]

This is incredibly true

[EaterPeter]

Yes and no.

[EaterPeter]

Thanks for like!

[Guardian45]

No, it does not.

[Guardian45]

Our brains perceive through our 5 or 6 senses (depending on what you believe). Our minds generate thoughts and feelings that can be communicated through them without language.

[Guardian45]

Nonverbal communication accounts for 58% of our communications

[Debbie14217]

not at all