How do/did people who never learned a language think?
In: 1738
https://radiolab.org/episodes/91725-words
Here’s a good podcast episode which includes the story of a man who made it to adulthood with no language (he was born deaf in a poor remote area), told by the woman who taught him sign language. It also has the account of a woman who had a stroke and lost her ability to speak, the story of a new sign language naturally forming at a school for the deaf, and more information on how language affects us.
The man without language had been going through life just miming to everyone around him. When he learned that there were words/signs for everything, it changed his world. He later said that it fundamentally changed how he thought.
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