How do/did people who never learned a language think?
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If you look into where modern linguistics and neurology cross over, for example with Noam Chomsky, you’ll find the belief of a strong bond between language and higher level reasoning where one cannot develop without the other. He also believes that human brains have strong, innate language capabilities. This explains the linguistic structures that are shared between all known human languages. So, I would sum that up as:
People who don’t learn a language will have a small, but limited ability for high level reasoning by using an innate, universal human grammar.
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.
You don’t always need language to think. In fact, a huge portion of the population, people you’d think are perfectly fine on the outside, who DON’T think in words. They think in senses and abstract ideas.
Even if they didn’t learn a spoken language or sign language if they are deaf/non-verbal but still communicating, they would still learn body language.
Unless they were completely isolated from any other form of life. For example if a child was raised by wolves they would still learn to understand the “language” of their howls, growls and barks, as well as they posture, facial expressions etc
Thats not something that can ever be truly answered. Only hypothesized by those who have learned a language
A lot of deaf people who experienced severe language deprivation as children and later learn sign language and go on to describe their experience as visual. Instead of thinking in words they would visualize things that they needed to work through.
You might be interested in this story about a def man who learned language as an adult. As I recall, he said that before he learned sign language he didn’t really have thoughts as such. Although I have heard that there is some controversy if this is somewhat exaggerated.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words)
https://radiolab.org/episodes/91725-words
When you’re hungry, do you think the words “I’m hungry”, or do you just know that you’re hungry? When the Sun is too bright in your eyes and you hold your hand up to block it, did you think the words “I’ll hold my hand up to block the light”? Neither of those things require speech to experience or to think of. Now extend that to *everything*. You can hunt a lion without ever knowing the words for *hunt* or *lion*. You still know the ideas and actions.
Something close but perhaps similar
Heard it on a podcast https://radiolab.org/episodes/91725-words
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words
> Within a few minutes of introductions, it became clear to her that Ildefonso did not understand her signs as a form of communication, but he diligently copied Schaller’s movements hoping to derive some meaning. Ildefonso seemed to see Schaller’s signs as commands more than representations of abstract concepts, and for several days appeared to make no progress. It was not until Schaller began signing the word “cat” to an imaginary student that Ildefonso suddenly understood her attempt to communicate meaning, at which point he began to cry.
I think others covered it well, but I wanted to mention a good percentage of the population doesn’t even think with language. one researcher estimated that 30 to 50% of people [don’t have an inner monologue](http://www.valleymagazinepsu.com/do-you-have-an-inner-monologue-lets-find-out/). which would mean their thoughts aren’t even formed with language but later translated to language when they want to express them?
I’m not sure how it works because I definitely have an inner monologue, but I also can tell when I am “feeling” rather than “thinking” about something, and I suppose maybe people like that are driven more by the feelings and less by rational thought? its hard to wrap ones mind around.
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