Is it possible to think without language

Many artists and scientists, in describing their own inner processes while they work, say they do not use words to solve problems, but images. The autistic author Temple Grandin, in explaining how she thinks visually rather than linguistically, says that concepts for her are collections of images. Her concept of "dog," for example, "is inextricably linked to every dog I've ever known.

It's as if I have a card catalog of dogs I have seen, complete with pictures, which continually grows as I add more examples to my video library. There is also evidence that deaf people cut off from language, spoken or signed, think in sophisticated ways before they have been exposed to language. When they later learn language, they can describe the experience of having had thoughts like those of the 15 year old boy who wrote in , after being educated at a school for the deaf, that he remembered thinking in his pre-language days "that perhaps the moon would strike me, and I thought that perhaps my parents were strong, and would fight the moon, and it would fail, and I mocked the moon.

However, while it appears that we can indeed think without language, it is also the case that there are certain kinds of thinking that are made possible by language. Her concept of "dog," for example, "is inextricably linked to every dog I've ever known. It's as if I have a card catalog of dogs I have seen, complete with pictures, which continually grows as I add more examples to my video library.

There is also evidence that deaf people cut off from language, spoken or signed, think in sophisticated ways before they have been exposed to language. When they later learn language, they can describe the experience of having had thoughts like those of the year-old boy who wrote in , after being educated at a school for the deaf, that he remembered thinking in his pre-language days "that perhaps the moon would strike me, and I thought that perhaps my parents were strong, and would fight the moon, and it would fail, and I mocked the moon.

However, while it appears that we can indeed think without language, it is also the case that there are certain kinds of thinking that are made possible by language. Language gives us symbols we can use to fix ideas, reflect on them and hold them up for observation. It allows for a level of abstract reasoning we wouldn't have otherwise.

The philosopher Peter Carruthers has argued that there is a type of inner, explicitly linguistic thinking that allows us to bring our own thoughts into conscious awareness. We may be able to think without language, but language lets us know that we are thinking. So now this brings me to a point worth mentioning. Different languages allow for the expression of different ideas. In the mids, I started my career as a computer programmer. We had various programming languages designed for different tasks.

For example:. Spoken languages also have special abilities designed into them, based on the needs of the language. I'll give you a couple of examples below. There are over 40 words for camel in the Arabic language. I've done some Google research that shows over In English, we just have one word for camel, and we include an adjective in front of it to describe the kind of camel.

Male camel, female camel, old or young, and so on. Arabic breaks this down into individual words to describe camels by specific entities such as age, color, number of humps, sex, and breeding status. This direct reference to different kinds of camels helps communicate since camels are essential for survival in the Arab World. We have a similar example in the western world. We have many different words for various types of birds.

Each word refers to a specific bird, such as bluejay, dove, robin, woodpecker, hummingbird, parakeet, sparrow, owl, hawk, etc. Remembering my High School English, I can explain this. When a direct reference to a noun does not exist in a language, an adjective must be used as a descriptive word. English and Spanish are two examples where we use a descriptive word adjective to define the subject the noun better. In English, the adjective comes before the noun, but this is not common among all languages.

Spanish, for example, has the adjective after the noun. You might begin to see that when someone learns a new language, their thought patterns may change as well. The various methods that languages impose restrictions or include more supportive direct references can help with thinking as well as communicating.

Some animals communicate with other methods that do not require structured language. I gave this a lot of thought. Since the concept was very involved, I was putting my thoughts into sentences to try to communicate with myself. Maybe one part of my brain was communicating with another part by offering structured sentences to be diagnosed and interpreted. More importantly, I suddenly realized that I was allowing my brain to reflect on my thoughts.

I tried to catch myself reflecting on notions, without actually using words. We do think in many alternate non-linguistic ways. How often have you just considered a thought visually? Images can replace language for communication and thinking. It's not uncommon to think with image representations. That can even help with interpretation. Awareness or consciousness does not require words. There is still some form of thinking going on.

Paying attention to what is going on around us or paying attention to our behavior does not necessarily require words. Different regions of the brain are triggered based on what is happening. We may actually have feelings and emotions that come from this brain activity. Thoughts in the form of words may not be required to feel the feeling. Those thoughts related to feelings might have developed unconsciously in your brain. You didn't need to use actual words or structured sentences.

Words are not always required to describe pleasing or displeasing emotions. Thinking might be on a conscious level, but I wouldn't rule out unconscious brain activity influencing our thoughts. Abstract thinking goes beyond concrete thoughts. It allows the ability to visualize ideas beyond the obvious. Child prodigies who can multiply large numbers in their heads are probably using abstract methods of thinking.

Thinking with representations can be accomplished a lot quicker than actual thinking because no time is wasted putting it into words. Maybe some people get through life with a little imaginary person on their shoulder telling them how to behave:. Two linguists, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf had publicized an interesting theory.

Known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, they state that the way people think is strongly affected by their native languages. One of their hypotheses is known as the Linguistic Relativity. The words of a language determine how we think. Although I agree that most of us do that most of the time, I think it's because we had learned a language and we use it. As I mentioned previously, I think that people can think in terms of concepts.

Therefore words are not always necessary. An individual can have a concept of an idea. Benjamin Whorf indicates that words place a label on the idea, and that influences our thought about it.

With that, I agree. I also like to compare the way the human brain works to the way computers work. So the speed of thought is an interesting addition to that analysis. An intriguing article Glenn. My thoughts are it may have been a challenge to write because you processed 'thoughts' or were thinking, which became abstracts, then related those in words as I am attempting here. I dun'no. I will continue pondering this morning.

Something you may be interested in and taking a peek at is the recent study and testing of the speed of thought. Catherine Giordano - Good thoughts on the subject. But how do you know that a gorilla had those thoughts before being taught sign language?

We really don't know that. We have no knowledge of a gorilla's thoughts before signing. If you have some reference to scientific data on it, please let me know. I'd like to read up on it.

You have got me thinking about thinking. You make so many good points about how words shape our thinking. I agree some thoughts can exist without words. Words are something we overlay onto a thought. The most primal thoughts require no words. For instance when a gorilla was taught some signs from sign language, he then hadwords for his thoughts.

But he had those thoughts before he had the words. Ziyi - You are experiencing the exact same thing I was referring to. When you think, you are using some other form of thought rather than applying words to the thoughts. Thank you for that detailed explanation. Right now while I'm writing in the comment, my brain is working hard trying to articulate literally my thoughts in a structured way. Before this time point my thoughts in my head were not completely literal or structured or well-organized.

So, what exactly was I thinking with? I came across this article because I saw a word that I didn't know in a sentence, yet without knowing its meaning I still understand the content and the meaning of the sentence from the context.

But for that specific word, I feel I have some sort of abstract and vague idea of what it could mean but in my head it's all very blurry and vague and I cannot find another word or put it into other words trying to define its meaning, not even in my native language.

Such things happen to me on a daily basis and I normally wouldn't give it second thought. But today it made me thinking As a native Chinese but predominantly using English in my daily life, my own experience says that the dominant language one uses in my case English , has greater influence in one's thinking rather than one's native language in my case Chinese. I can definitely feel how my English skills confine my ability of thinking in English. It influences my thinking to a degree that I often find myself stuck in a place, empty headed, as my English does not support my thinking yet I cannot activate my brain to continue thinking in Chinese either.

As a matter of fact, it is more frequently happening to me that I cannot find the word in Chinese than in English and when I talk with my fellow Chinese people they often complain that I mix with English words or speaking with a foreign feeling. A lot of times, I find myself "thinking" without or beyond language, neither in English or in Chinese. I am clearly thinking of something, but if you ask me, it's difficult for me to tell you exactly what I am thinking about.

In that sense, I do feel putting thoughts in words do help to organize and structurize is that a word? I am not sure if that is unique for bilingual people or it's common.

And I can't help thinking "if i'm not thinking in either language, what am I thinking with? Piyush Ranjan - You have interesting questions about being productive without language. Language is something that's taught to us after we born. It is not innate. I was wondering if there's an alternative to languages?