Does thought process have to have a language?

[mobobuff]

If left on your own for 18 years, you'd develop your own ways of subjective thought.

If you are raised to speak a certain language, your subjective thought will be composed primarily of the language which you were taught.

The mind can think, and the mind can direct. The mind doesn't need language to direct, but it certainly becomes much more efficient at thinking when it has a language motor. Not having a language would severely limit the complexity of any certain thought. However, who is to say that after 18 years, that person wouldn't have developed their own advanced language? I'd also wager that such a person would develop a much longer short-term memory than your average human.

Edited for wording.

 

[dawnbug]

Originally posted by: PeeluckyDuckee
Say if a person was brought up without human contact and left alone in a enclosed space until 18, what language is his/her thought process in? Would his thoughts and actions be equivalent of that of a primitive human being?

You might find the case of Genie to be interesting. She was horribly abused by her parents and kept isolated for the first 13 years of her life. After she was taken out of the environment, she was never able to fully acquire English. She was studied for several years. It's an interesting case.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: LadyBuggy

Originally posted by: PeeluckyDuckee
Say if a person was brought up without human contact and left alone in a enclosed space until 18, what language is his/her thought process in? Would his thoughts and actions be equivalent of that of a primitive human being?

You might find the case of Genie to be interesting. She was horribly abused by her parents and kept isolated for the first 13 years of her life. After she was taken out of the environment, she was never able to fully acquire English. She was studied for several years. It's an interesting case.

Yeah, that's who I thought of when I heard the title too.
http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie

She was able to learn an impressive vocabulary, but was unable to structure her verbal communication correctly with grammar.

There was an amazing Nova (I think?) special on her and other cases of feral children that I've seen several times.
There were other cases discussed too some that were able to integrate into society and some not as well depending on the exposure to humans. If they missed a "critical period" for language acquisition it seemed like they were doomed to not be able to make the appropriate connections.

As far as though processes relating to these children I guess it's hard to separate that than the language they were able to use.

 

[CKent]

No, I think in pictures. I often have trouble putting my thoughts into words actually.

 

[PeeluckyDuckee]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: LadyBuggy

Originally posted by: PeeluckyDuckee
Say if a person was brought up without human contact and left alone in a enclosed space until 18, what language is his/her thought process in? Would his thoughts and actions be equivalent of that of a primitive human being?

You might find the case of Genie to be interesting. She was horribly abused by her parents and kept isolated for the first 13 years of her life. After she was taken out of the environment, she was never able to fully acquire English. She was studied for several years. It's an interesting case.

Yeah, that's who I thought of when I heard the title too.
http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie

She was able to learn an impressive vocabulary, but was unable to structure her verbal communication correctly with grammar.

There was an amazing Nova (I think?) special on her and other cases of feral children that I've seen several times.
There were other cases discussed too some that were able to integrate into society and some not as well depending on the exposure to humans. If they missed a "critical period" for language acquisition it seemed like they were doomed to not be able to make the appropriate connections.

As far as though processes relating to these children I guess it's hard to separate that than the language they were able to use.

Wow, that's really sad what the child had to go through.

 

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: joshsquall
No, but language does affect what you can think of. Basically, language limits what you can imagine or perceive as reality. This is part of the Sapir Wharf Hypothesis. Here's an interesting link:

http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~johnca/spch100/4-9-sapir.htm

Uh..that sounds good.

 

[sandorski]

Complex thought process would certainly need Language, so you can string various things together to reach a conclusion. Without language we'd have the Intelligence of an animal, very basic, totally focussed on survival.

 

[Nirach]

Personally, I find describing what I'm thinking very, very difficult.

It's not that I don't have a decent grasp of the English language (I just can't spell it for love nor money) I just don't think that a lot of words actually hold any meanying these days.

As with PeeluckyDuckee, I can't remember anything much up until about seven, or eight years old. I have vague flashes of memories, but I couldn't tell you what the heck they were from, when they happened or who I was with. and most of them are only because of photographs

I certainly don't remember any faces of teachers at my primary school. Or many of the names. Infact, I only remember one because she died recently.

Bloody human minds being so complex and generally weird.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Excellent topic. Props to the OP.

 

[kongs]

Yeah I've thought of this before, I find it pretty interesting. However, Its appears evident that you don't need a language to think and the best way for me to illustrate it is with sports. I play football in college and with each and every play I have to think prior to the play, but once the ball is snapped no "thinking" goes on it is just reactions from what I see and what I have learned over all my years of experience. Whats also amazing to me is that we make these decisions in the smallest fractions of a second yet when you take a look back at previous plays you would be amazed at how many times you did the exactly correct move.

 

[Eli]

I have wondered this myself.

 

[DrPizza]

Sometimes I think in English,
Sometimes I think in terms of visual images,
Other times, I can't even describe how I think.

For instance, I drove to work today. There was, apparently, some thinking going on. Most of it was relegated to some other place in my brain where I wasn't too conscious of it. Simultaneously, I was thinking (in English) about all my lesson plans for today. (Gotta start trig identities, ughh). But, at the same time, as I was thinking about what things I would have to teach, my mind was also doing a lot of symbolic mathematical manipulation, as I went through derivations of different formulas for pre-calculus and for calculus.

Another place that I think that thinking is weird is while typing. I just think words, and my fingers make them appear. It's a weird mix of English, letters, and English. Only occasionally do I think of the letters that I need to type. Other times, my mind (thinking in words) is several words ahead of where my fingers are typing. Every once in a while, there's an almost instantaneous pause between thinking my thought and a realization that my fingers don't automatically type a certain word which takes thought of the letters (for example, my mind was on "my thought" when my fingers hit "instantaneous" - I had to return to that word, but didn't have to think of the letters, only the syllables.

I wonder if people who type with 1 or 2 fingers ever develop that sense of your fingers automatically doing it for you?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: PeeluckyDuckee

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: LadyBuggy

Originally posted by: PeeluckyDuckee
Say if a person was brought up without human contact and left alone in a enclosed space until 18, what language is his/her thought process in? Would his thoughts and actions be equivalent of that of a primitive human being?

You might find the case of Genie to be interesting. She was horribly abused by her parents and kept isolated for the first 13 years of her life. After she was taken out of the environment, she was never able to fully acquire English. She was studied for several years. It's an interesting case.

Yeah, that's who I thought of when I heard the title too.
http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie

She was able to learn an impressive vocabulary, but was unable to structure her verbal communication correctly with grammar.

There was an amazing Nova (I think?) special on her and other cases of feral children that I've seen several times.
There were other cases discussed too some that were able to integrate into society and some not as well depending on the exposure to humans. If they missed a "critical period" for language acquisition it seemed like they were doomed to not be able to make the appropriate connections.

As far as though processes relating to these children I guess it's hard to separate that than the language they were able to use.

Wow, that's really sad what the child had to go through.

I know, it's awful. That's why this sort of thing is called "The Forbidden Experiment" so ethically we wont be able to answer something like this question of how someone would think if they made it 18 years without language.