if a human being was born in the wild and left alone. When this person grows to be able to think, would they think using a language of their own or would they just develop an understanding of the world around?
In: Biology
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They would develop some understanding of the world around them, but no they would not develop language on their own.
We’ve already experimented with this before. Kept newborns in isolation, even when other humans did interact they had strict orders to not speak to them. The children grew up without language, being completely mute even by ages 3-6. The experiments were quickly discontinued when it became clear that we were severely disabling orphans for the sake of “discovering” the origin of language, which turns out to be more of a communal trait rather than an individual one.
If you have seen any new born, you’ll instantly know that any person being born in the wild and left alone right away would not survive.
So they would need someone to nurture them to at least over a year old. Let’s say after being abandoned, luckily, a monkey or some animal found the baby and decided to raise him. The baby will grow up with the herd, learn their behavior and ways of communication of that animal. They will understand the world a bit above that of wild animals but not as sophisticated as regular human that lives in human society.
So someone who grew up alone, with no contact with another human or society in general would **most likely think in pure image, with a little sound**. Said person would have no need to develop some kind of language as they have no one to communicate ideas to other than themselves.
[There have been many cases of this happening](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child) with varying results, sometimes they integrate back into society and learn to speak sometimes not.
The age limit seems to be around 3, presumably children abandoned before then are unable to survive even if taken in by an animal.
Language and communication is a serious milestone in our evolution. Without this, this person would surely be disabled. They would think in purely cause and effect. Fortunately if they were found our bring brains would allow them to learn language. They would instantly become smarter in only a few years and would probably be normal after a while of interaction.
We wouldn’t know what they think. It would likely be in images and emotions because no they would have no concept of language.
There have been instances that provide us with insight such as Genie, or The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog. It appears that there is a narrow window for language development to take place.
Look up the term “Feral Children”.
Humans, like many intelligent animals, are very social creatures. It turns out that our social abilities do in fact have to be learned by participating in said society.
Wonder if they would still have an internal monologue and what it would consist of. A human brain is a human brain…we are always talking to ourselves throughout our daily actions.
Do they develop anxiety if they don’t have language, were there any studies around mental health? ….
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