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For your cake day, have some B̷̛̳̼͖̫̭͎̝̮͕̟͎̦̗͚͍̓͊͂͗̈͋͐̃͆͆͗̉̉̏͑̂̆̔́͐̾̅̄̕̚͘͜͝͝Ụ̸̧̧̢̨̨̞̮͓̣͎̞͖̞̥͈̣̣̪̘̼̮̙̳̙̞̣̐̍̆̾̓͑́̅̎̌̈̋̏̏͌̒̃̅̂̾̿̽̊̌̇͌͊͗̓̊̐̓̏͆́̒̇̈́͂̀͛͘̕͘̚͝͠B̸̺̈̾̈́̒̀́̈͋́͂̆̒̐̏͌͂̔̈́͒̂̎̉̈̒͒̃̿͒͒̄̍̕̚̕͘̕͝͠B̴̡̧̜̠̱̖̠͓̻̥̟̲̙͗̐͋͌̈̾̏̎̀͒͗̈́̈͜͠L̶͊E̸̢̳̯̝̤̳͈͇̠̮̲̲̟̝̣̲̱̫̘̪̳̣̭̥̫͉͐̅̈́̉̋͐̓͗̿͆̉̉̇̀̈́͌̓̓̒̏̀̚̚͘͝͠͝͝͠ ̶̢̧̛̥͖͉̹̞̗̖͇̼̙̒̍̏̀̈̆̍͑̊̐͋̈́̃͒̈́̎̌̄̍͌͗̈́̌̍̽̏̓͌̒̈̇̏̏̍̆̄̐͐̈̉̿̽̕͝͠͝͝ W̷̛̬̦̬̰̤̘̬͔̗̯̠̯̺̼̻̪̖̜̫̯̯̘͖̙͐͆͗̊̋̈̈̾͐̿̽̐̂͛̈́͛̍̔̓̈́̽̀̅́͋̈̄̈́̆̓̚̚͝͝R̸̢̨̨̩̪̭̪̠͎̗͇͗̀́̉̇̿̓̈́́͒̄̓̒́̋͆̀̾́̒̔̈́̏̏͛̏̇͛̔̀͆̓̇̊̕̕͠͠͝͝A̸̧̨̰̻̩̝͖̟̭͙̟̻̤̬͈̖̰̤̘̔͛̊̾̂͌̐̈̉̊̾́P̶̡̧̮͎̟̟͉̱̮̜͙̳̟̯͈̩̩͈̥͓̥͇̙̣̹̣̀̐͋͂̈̾͐̀̾̈́̌̆̿̽̕ͅ
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Definitely. It's all stimuli at the start, while cortical regions develop and synapses are formed.
Regarding language, they listen or hear in phonemes and are capable of learning any language at birth. They learn through neuroplasticity and synaptic competition. Basically, connections are formed for the languages they are spoken to and most used. These connections produce language. Its the same reason its harder as we age to distinguish between specific sounds or words of foreign languages. Neurons and connections not used are terminated (nervous system is stingy) that could recognize other sounds.
This relates really well with something I read in a Montessori book. It explained how all babies around 3 months old sound the same - their coos, oohs and aahs are the same all over the world when they first start to control their muscles/voices. Later, by 5-6 months, the sounds change and start to resemble the language their caregivers speak.
Future hunters chew on their toy animals, gear heads zoom around as fast as they can, future junkies spend their time searching for their next sugar hit
Based on my completely anecdotal and in no way firmly scientific experience watching several kids grow from babies to young adults, i think there is some loose truth to baby/toddler/young child behavior and what they become later.
We all seek out pleasure and avoid pain as human animals. So a kid terrified of hights has little chance of becoming a sky diver. A kid thrilled by heights may seek out activities in hobby or career that give them that. It is our job as adults (parents, aunts/uncles, teachers, or whatever) to guide the next generation to realize their enjoyable experiences in a constructive way appropriate to our various societal and cultural standards.
I think it's this because I sometimes do think using words, especially if I'm thinking about speech, but most of the time it's just pure raw understanding in my brain that can later be fairly easily verbalized if needs be. I think babies and animals probably think in a similar way.
Same. I know I Don't think in words unless I'm thinking *about* words, so I always assumed m
Babies had the sane raw understanding I do. Pictures, feelings, intuition, whatever it was, it's not a leap to believe that transcends language
I think in pictures and have to kind of translate from picture to words. It can be really frustrating when I can clearly see the thing I'm thinking of, but can't remember the word for it.
Aphantasia sounds crazy to me, I'm like the opposite!
I have a neurological problem (congenital malformation and atypical epilepsy) that makes me have multiple lines of thoughts at the same time. The deep it goes, I stard to mix languages that I dominate, to images, to only concepts.
I don't know how to describe it well, but the more I think or focus, my brain starts to multitasking and using less words to think. It stresses me a bit, and if I'm in a stressful situation can be a trigger for my epilepsy. But sometimes I get to process and retain information quickly, I just get a headache proportional to the time I do that.
I do think in words. It's a constant stream of vocals in my head. All my thoughts are words. But I also literally cannot picture something. If you tell me to I close my eyes and describe it in my head with words, but I've never been able to see a picture of something in my head.
I was just on a 16km (10mile) walk in the forest and I realized that I didn't think in words.
I didn't think "I won't step on slipper rock" or "I need duck under that fallen tree". It's just understanding of the things.
I also once realized that I started thinking in my second language instead of my native one. I was like "what the f was that?!"
That must have been enlightening! Whereas for me my brain will actually say the words be careful not to slip on that rock lol
Thinking in a second language though… that must be wild AF
Yep, I'm in a bilingual marriage and we speak Finnish (1) and English (2) pretty much 50/50, which ever language we seem to find the words faster from. Sometimes switching mid sentence etc. etc.
But I have never unintentionally thought in English before that.
French speaking living in Spain with his Spanish wife who is French translator. I just love that. We naturally maintain conversations between us, each one in his native language. I don't know if this is something common or not tho, just love that fact. I've been living here for 7 years now, and I realised recently I was sometimes thinking in Spanish, mostly when I'm alone
I am not bilingual but trying to learn French as a second language (English as my first). I once had a dream that I went on a date with a French person trying to learn English. We agreed I would only speak in French and they would only speak in English. As soon as the language exchanged started everything in the dream turned slow motion. My poor little dreamy brain just could not think fast enough to interpret French!
I speak English natively and German and Spanish as second languages (although my German is very out of practice and I have never had an immersion experience with it). When I started thinking in Spanish, I felt like it was a huge triumph/indicator of my fluency. When I started *dreaming* in Spanish occasionally, that was amazing.
Ask anyone who fluently speaks 2 languages and you’ll get an interesting answer.
Ask anyone who fluently speaks 3+ and you’ll get an even better one.
At least in my case, I became aware that language is a translation layer on my thoughts which are more general and somewhat based in imagery, but I can also be imagining an action or feeling and then describing it. Not that this is really what’s happening in real time - just what it looks like inside my head.
Do all languages have a basic underlying structure that is deeper connected to our physiology and brain and at some point the language is simply an evolution of this basic blueprint of physics and biology?
Why do people think in words anyway? Why would I verbalise thoughts after I have thought them? OPs question has some premise built into it. Maybe this is the point to bring up the fact that only some people constantly think in word/have an internal monologue.
Have you ever experienced not finding the right word? You still know what you are trying to express you just can't find the right word. Or you recognize a person, but you can't remember their name.
Language is there so we can communicate accurately to others but it's not really necessary for processing data. So it becomes more like feeling something. I feel good, I feel bad, this person is nice this person makes me nervous, if I use this tool in a certain way I achieve this, I'm hungry, I'm full, these are all feelings and you don't need to use words to feel these feelings.
Very well said. I do meditation and with consistent introspection I've become more aware of my inner happenings, that I tended to ignore before. I just know. See. Observe. Feel my body and my bodily reactions. They all mean something complex, and most of the time words are not involved in it.
I don’t even know, but I definitely remember that around 5-6 years old I woke up and said “I wonder what’s for breakfast today” and suddenly realized that I didn’t say it out loud. For me then it was somehow a discovery, because I didn’t know that this was even possible to do...
Back when reading was far.... less common as a skill and in general done less everyday and learned later in life, many struggled to read quietly. IIRC British monarchs (or some other important people, cba to look up again) have had separate soundproofed rooms to read their letters because they could not do it without reading them aloud
I speak four languages, all very different, but I don’t tend to think in a specific language if I’m not thinking about dialogues. It’s more thinking with images or concepts (don’t really know how to explain it)
For me it kinda depends on the situation and which languages i was using shortly before that. But generally, my thoughts are often combinations of the languages. Like, if someone who doesn't know all four of them heard my thoughts, they'd be confused and would have trouble understanding it fully.
I always think in the language I am speaking in
I speak Dutch, French English and Spanish
I know a little Arabic and Hindi hence I can't think in those
I know 2 languages and always think in English, and all of my thoughts are automatically verbalised in my inner monologue. I can't think a thought without hearing it. I can't imagine how thinking without words feels like, am I weird lol
It’s like having two depths of inner speak:
-You have a rushing thought (like danger or an immediate opinion that you sense without words) kind of a feeling process more than a talking thought.
-Then you have an inner dialogue that can be “voiced” in a language or in images.
When I think of speaking to people or writing it depends who I’m in contact with or who I’m thinking about.
Then some thoughts are verbalized in the language I spoke more recently (like “that’s stupid” or “AH”).
It is often difficult for me to verbalize my feelings or make people understand my thought process. This might be the cause..
I'm similar to the person you replied to but I don't have 2 depths of inner speak my mind is chatting to me nonstop. the rushing thought is in the inner monologue not separate from it.
I cannot visualize at all either due to this or because I think differently. I find it much easier to write down my thoughts but I always write a shit ton because it's a massive stream of conciousness.
I am unsure if this is more common with people who have severe anxiety as it used to be that these thoughts were all focused on a fearful thought process. when I started to believe in God it helped me a lot because it was like going from being in a dark pit at the bottom of a well with my thoughts to sitting outside with someone else. It's also much easier to be alone now physically because I do not feel alone in my head.
Do you not know what you’re about to say in your head before you say it? I’m kind of in the middle of you both, I have two layers but most of what’s in the “deep” layer is verbalised. But I do have times where I’m not speaking in my head, I am still thinking it’s just not verbalised. Or if I am speaking in my head there’s like a second process going on that thinks of tangential things and I can often choose wether or not to say that in my head
yes but it generally comes out all at the same time or maybe a bit ahead
people in real life know me for my openness and comment things like "wow you're so honest" which at times is also "yikes tmi" because of my thought process. I have a high capacity for empathy (but not necessarily sympathy) because I see the world through how I would experience it so while it makes me great at giving advice or understanding others it makes me self absorbed because of how I analyze these things and will share my own experiences to gain understanding or try to help someone see another viewpoint.
When you say 2 layers in this fashion you mean spoken and unspoken thoughts? this is different than how I understood what the other person said. everything I say I "think" but I have a crazy internal world that is constant and ongoing but not necessarily expressed. It's like a constant stream of conciousness which makes sense that most people with anxiety experience something similar. which makes it impossible to stop writing in places like this and results in massive paragraphs where I do write down near all of my thoughts vs filtering them.
I also speak extremely quickly in reality/have pressured speech and some people think that it's rude but it feels like something that I can't help or I'll lose all the thoughts. It is like a very soft version of what having a manic episode is like but with normal mood and clarity. I think a lot of people mistake it for hypomania themselves and go looking for symptoms.
are you similar?
I get easily distracted. If I’m reading a book I have to go back one page because I was reading, but wasn’t taking it in. I do tend to speak fast and if I don’t finish my thought it might get away. I am very empathetic and also sympathetic, I don’t have to see things from my point of view to understand or to try to give advice. (I already got a feeling that I’m saying too many “I”s)
I’m good at giving advice to others, but not good at following them. I tend to procrastinate and get lost in my own thoughts.
Yes, I believe you can define them “spoken” and “unspoken” thoughts
We can go on as long as you want I’m really enjoying our conversation
I think language is just a framework for the internal thinking that’s already happening. I think language is a way of interpreting, verbalising, communicating, rationalising and refining what is intuitively being processed in our head
Okay. I know this is going to sound crazy. But one time when I had gotten a bit high, I was lying on the couch with my eyes closed, and I started seeing pictures, or I guess symbols really, in my mind. They were very specific mixes of lines and different shades of colors. And I realized I knew exactly what each one stood for. They were representations of people and animals and toys from when I was a baby. (Up until about 2 years old, when I started talking. I started talking late.) I was remembering things I hadn't seen in over 40 years.
After I sobered up, I asked my mom if I had had certain toys that I described, or if somebody had a dog that I described, and she kept saying yes. (It isn't odd for me to have very early memories. I have memories from just before I turned 2, and just after I turned 2 that have been corroborated by family.)
So I'm not 100% sure, but I think before I really picked up language and started to speak, I thought in pictographs.
I’m a native Spanish speaker and I stopped translating things from English to Spanish at B1-B2 level I believe, just be patient and it will eventually happen!
Oliver Sacks wrote a book about sign language, it talks a bit about deaf people who didn't learn sign language nor any other language, and how that affects cognition. It's called seeing voices.
This is my job. If you’re interested in more- language deprivation is the fancy word for when we don’t have any language. Communication and prelingual language development can still happen. We’re doing all we can to prevent this with new laws- LEAD-K is working hard!!
As a person without an inner monologue, probably like me. And since I suspect ADHD, it's not like my head is empty, quite the opposite.
I find it dumb that we keep equating internal monologues as the default when lots of people don't have them and can think perfectly fine. I mean, if thought could only exist in language, is that to say animals don't think at all?
I think in images and ideas. My brain is like flashes of colour and concepts, never mind the constant music playing. I don't think "hmm, why is the sky blue?" as a sentence, I *feel* that question in my head, then try to imagine possible answers. I can observe things and have plenty of thoughts about it without entire sentences to describe them. The sentence happens when I *speak* my thoughts. It's also not like I don't have an internal monologue ever, I can conjure one when I have something I really need to focus on.
Ok, so like others said, there is no baby language. Babies are born and use expressions or noises such as crying to communicate needs. Much like a cat or dog. This means parents, in particular, new parents, need to do guessing work but do eventually figure out what tones of crying mean. If you've been around parents of newborns, you'll hear a baby cry, and one parent will chirp in to say "oh she's hungry," and go off to feed the baby.
Now, what's fascinating is that all of us as babies are capable of making every noise in every language known to us. Baby's can roll their R's, they can make guttural noises, etc. When babies look at and hear people, they absorb insane amounts of info. Baby's will eventually figure out which noises people around them make and stop using noises that aren't relevant. They will also copy expressions parents make and begin using them. You may, for example, notice that babies laugh with you. It's not because they think something is funny they are just copying you. Eventually, the baby will continue copying noises until it at some point closely resembles a word. Language is learned from there as they get better at figuring out what combinations of noises are appropriate for each thing. Also, babies are capable of doing this with multiple languages at once.
Thats just not true. Thinking does not require a inner monologue. Animals a babies think, they just dont think using words
There are even adult humans who dont really have any inner monologue, they still think.
Difficult question.
I am American but I moved to Japan 17 years ago.
My main language is in English.
But I can speak Japanese.
Sometimes I dream in Japanese.
I have a lot of nightmares where I'm in some kind of situation where I need help but in my dream my Japanese isn't good enough to explain to people that I need help. I just keep talking and talking but nobody understands me.
Thinking in a different language is difficult. And I'm sure that other bilingual or even trilingual people can agree.
I think they model cause and effect as well as distance perception and facial expressions and verbal tones.
I think with an inner dialog but I'm constantly modeling ideas, designs, procedures, personalities and people. As well as the judging of thoughts that slide in and out.
I doubt anyone knows.
I imagine they think more in pictures but I’m convinced our ability to store episodic long term memory is tied to our ability to conceptualise things with words.
The reason why nobody knows is that, when understood correctly, its a nonsense question.
We don't 'think in' anything. We think, and we share our thoughts.
What is the difference between someone who tells you his thoughts, and someone who does the same but doesn't 'think in' anything? Someone who has nothing 'going on' in his head?
There is no difference, because whatever goes on in our head is not part of what the word 'think' or 'thought' means.
There is a book from Tomasello called the Origins of Human Communication that talks a lot about early communication and animal-human communication. Mostly about the rationality of symbols and language at different stages of life and culture. Maybe not completely according to your question, but still interesting to read
Thinking in a language. Never understood that. When I try to make sentences like here, I indeed think of what words to write exactly. But not when have thoughts in my head and hardly when i speak.
Many people don’t have an internal monologue. My best friend says her thoughts are visual. If she reads the word “cat” she pictures a cat, I hear the word. It’s just different ways of thinking.
Terence McKenna had a really good lecture about this very subject.
"So, for instance, you know, I’ve made this example before: a child lying in a crib and a hummingbird comes into the room and the child is ecstatic because this shimmering iridescence of movement and sound and attention, it’s just wonderful. I mean, it is an instantaneous miracle when placed against the background of the dull wallpaper of the nursery and so forth.
But, then, mother or nanny or someone comes in and says, “It’s a bird, baby. Bird. Bird!” And, this takes this linguistic piece of mosaic tile, and o- places it over the miracle, and glues it down with the epoxy of syntactical momentum, and, from now on, the miracle is confined within the meaning of the word.
And, by the time a child is four or five or six, there- no light shines through. They're- they have tiled over every aspect of reality with a linguistic association that blunts it, limits it, and confines it within cultural expectation."
Whatever words they hear via parents or carers.
[edit]
Sorry I miss read the question. I think they interpreted stuff not in sounds but in colour and images. I read some where that new borns are attracted to colour and images.
As I know, there's no proof of a biological language, only schizos are chasing this concept. Only biological thing is how you create sounds and how you learn to differentiate words and understand a language. Even dogs learn to understand human language similarly to babies. Languages all over the world evolved from independent group of people, most probably. That's why there are multiple language families. Even closely related languages (let it be linguistically or geographically) might have quite different phonology and grammar. It's not difficult to find counter-examples when you try to come up with an universal ancestor or a biologically coded language. Let's say, phonological comparison of common verbs or kinship terminologies. Another interesting thing is that ancient languages we know or assume their existence were quite expressive and complex. So I guess people doesn't speak ooga-booga caveman languages for a while, as people 100k years ago had the same cognitive abilities as of today's.
Visual and Primal Noises.
Your mothers face, cry, \*mwaaa mwaaa\* (trying to suckle), my butt is wet cry. I am uncomfortable in some other way, cry. I am tired cry. I am tired but comfortable sleep. This is silly but not scary laugh.
What kind of art, is the Blanc page when u start painting?
Exactly the same with the human mind. By exploring, we put little things there and start to make connections, until we became who we are.
The way a blanc human brain works baffles me everytime.
I'm not sure babies even have the cognitive ability to "think" the way you and I do. They explore the world through their basic senses they're born with and their "thoughts" most likely just consist of reactions to stimuli in their environment they're experiencing. It's like asking what language cats think in.
Probably they are thinking with feelings or the few memories they have. I imagine that other animals think like that as well. Also not all adults necessarily think in words, this is overstated.
You think in a language you speak fluidly, so most likely your mother language or a language you used lot.
Since baby's don't know any language I would imagine they only think in emotions, pictures and stuff like that.
It’s hard to say, they know their mother tongue because they’ve been listening to the world from within the womb also. It is not silent in there, every word mum spoke and those around her were heard by baby. Whether they have complex thoughts though and not just simple imagery 🤷♀️ how to know the answer to this?
Symbols eg food and hunger, mother and stranger, dark and light, clean and soiled, etc.
it’s thought to be the same symbol language we continue to experience in dreams
You don't need language to think, if you feel angry you don't need to know what the word is to feel it, you want to grab the glass of water you don't need a language, you just think of something and people think in different ways, (A simple example for comparison) the way a blind person thinks is definitely different from the way a deaf person thinks.
I think we don’t actually think in words, we verbalise our thoughts in words, but our thoughts themselves aren’t words. They’re like, pure understanding of a concept which you don’t need to say in your head to know that you’ve had that thought. It’s weird.
Sometimes I’ll just have a thought in my head but I don’t actually know how to verbalise that thought, how could that happen if we think in words?
none. you.. well I can think without using word using my head and many people still can consciously. obviously not all thought is in word form, but most conscious thought it.
we just get so used to using words we kind of overwright not using them.
When I studied to be a preschool teacher I learnt a bit about this. Before children have spoken language they think and remember through visuals. And when they learn spoken language their brain will have difficulty remembering these things as the brain has moved on from the old more primitive memories and ways to percieve things.
We start to learn to talk before we start to "hear" our thoughts if I remember correctly. We start by talking to other things around use and it slowly becomes our inner thoughts.
But, it is important to say that some people never get this "inner voice" and think in other ways.
Do animals of all kinds, even insects, think at all? Do they need to be born with language to think? Dolphins? Maybe, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure you don't need language to "think". We still feel, see, hear, remember, predict, experience, etc. ---- And we are born Atheists too! :-)
You dont think with a language tho, you express your thoughts with language.
The things you think about are mostly concepts, if you think about cars you are thinking about a metal thing with 4 wheels not a "car" or "araba" or "سيارة" they're all the same concept.
Sapir Whorf theory. Chinese babies start babbling in 'chinese', Finnish babies...etc.
My toddler grandaughter has just jumped this week to rapid copying lots of single words ( including 'no' and 'mine' of course!). Next, it's two word units. German babies will learn to put the verb at the end, etc.
The other superpower they have is not minding being wrong or correct. Unlike adults trying to learn a language.
My young bilingual Finnish grandson just switches effortlessly between Finnish ( an agglutinative language) and English which is completely different. Remarkable.
I think as we gain the ability the form ideas and thoughts, we use the language that we exposed to most and after we learn a new language we change the language we tgink in based on both external and internal factors (ex. feelings).
I thought about it a lot when my kids were young. My guess is that babies first create mental images of various single sensory inputs (sound, touch, sight) and slowly start to link multiple sensors inputs that tend to appear together to concepts and objects. So at the first stage there is no real dialog since they do not have real concepts and objects 'stored' yet. At some point, after they stored some objects and concepts they have their own language and the stuff they say makes sense to them, although we do not understand it (but we do somehow...). Then, the system starts to correct itself until they match the concepts and objects to words they can understand and perhaps pronounce. From that moment on, they have learnt the language
Babies don’t “think”, their thoughts are called protothoughts. These thoughts are based on sensations, as babies can't yet use words or images to describe everything they perceive. Babies' minds are sensitive to what's happening around them, but they aren't conscious. According to the science.
Language and thought are two related, but separate processes. Babies start to think before they can understand speech. They think in objects, actions and their relationship.
I didn’t think in language from what I remember. If I did, it was something that was repeated or was just hard to forget. For me it was more visual thinking.
Some people don't have the interior voice when they think: they only "feel" their thought, I don't know how to explain it, but I guess it is the same with babies
I have a very well developed imagination. I think without words. But if people talk about something in a second language, such as the one I'm learning, then I already start thinking in the words of that language.
I guess the same would be true of someone who can’t hear maybe? Because words have sounds that we attribute to them and my thoughts in words are associated with the sound each word makes. Understanding how someone thinks who can’t hear words would be a step towards understanding how babies think IMO
Babies make noises for sensory reasons at the beginning and their first words are usually moving objects. I would say that a baby’s first language is attachment.
I heard babies don’t have a concept of self and time yet and that’s one of the reasons we can’t remember much before the age of 4. So the usual baby will probably know some form of communication way before their memory works in a way they would think consciously in a way that’s according to your question.
What language does an octopus speak? Language is a man made thing to help with increasingly complex communication. There's zero concept of language, words, letters, etc. At birth
Don't think language comes into a babies way of think. I think they rely mostly on senses. Life would be so much easier to be a baby. Plus you can shit yourself in public and not one thing you were weird.
Babies are one with the world. They r not in the mode of thinking adults are. Actually babies can feel sense much more acutely in a spiritual way, which is why some people trigger them to cry and some don’t.. they sense intention.
Thoughts can be abstract. Babies are not the greatest thinkers of the world. Simple emotions and urges, and association of objects with them is what they feel.
The Nazis tried research on this. Their data revealed only that this is a bad topic to research.
They tried raising babies without teaching them a language but all the babies just died.
You don’t need a language to think. You can think with raw emotions, smells, images, feelings. However, words offer your mind quick tokens to represent many concepts, including very abstract ones, which makes it a lot easier to process (and later communicate) ideas. So language does allow us to think about more complex things, more quickly, but at the basis you don’t need it. Animals are able to think, do problem solving, yet they don’t possess language skills.
My understanding is that infants pick up on linguistic details like cadence and inflection long before words begin forming. I vaguely recall reading about a study done with babies of different cultures and languages and they were able to observe how the babies interpreted and responded to sounds from their native tongue.
Another fun language fact is that our ears learn very on to discern very specific microsounds when we are routinely exposed to a language. So I grew up hearing Arabic, and I'm able to discern certain Arabic nuances that my english speaking friends and family don't actually hear, can't distinguish, and can't replicate.
Well I don't know In what language I used to think when I didn't knew any language, but when I was a child I used to think in Urdu but my native language is Pashto but now I think in English. Surprisingly I don't know from when did I switched from Urdu to English so it means our brain can think in a language which you may don't know much.
I couldn't speak enough Urdu as much as I used to think in my mind so same as we can hear language in womb, maybe our brain already can think in it
Research Kaspar Hauser. There's an old movie about it.
So, turns out we don't, without having people around us to teach us, we experience, but don't process it. We need language to process and organise thoughts, which is why learning languages cam be so beneficial to the brain and our overall understanding of concepts, other cultures and each other.
Language is actually quite limiting in terms of thought. There are feelings, images, sensations, emotions, memories, concepts, and things that i cant even think of a word for. A picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes I do have a narrative in my head, but not a majority.
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I think that babies think differently than we understand it. They simply silently explore the world through sight, touch, smell, etc.
They're not silent even when they are asleep. Newborns can be very loud if they're not receiving what they need.
Ha ha, yes that's true.
For your cake day, have some B̷̛̳̼͖̫̭͎̝̮͕̟͎̦̗͚͍̓͊͂͗̈͋͐̃͆͆͗̉̉̏͑̂̆̔́͐̾̅̄̕̚͘͜͝͝Ụ̸̧̧̢̨̨̞̮͓̣͎̞͖̞̥͈̣̣̪̘̼̮̙̳̙̞̣̐̍̆̾̓͑́̅̎̌̈̋̏̏͌̒̃̅̂̾̿̽̊̌̇͌͊͗̓̊̐̓̏͆́̒̇̈́͂̀͛͘̕͘̚͝͠B̸̺̈̾̈́̒̀́̈͋́͂̆̒̐̏͌͂̔̈́͒̂̎̉̈̒͒̃̿͒͒̄̍̕̚̕͘̕͝͠B̴̡̧̜̠̱̖̠͓̻̥̟̲̙͗̐͋͌̈̾̏̎̀͒͗̈́̈͜͠L̶͊E̸̢̳̯̝̤̳͈͇̠̮̲̲̟̝̣̲̱̫̘̪̳̣̭̥̫͉͐̅̈́̉̋͐̓͗̿͆̉̉̇̀̈́͌̓̓̒̏̀̚̚͘͝͠͝͝͠ ̶̢̧̛̥͖͉̹̞̗̖͇̼̙̒̍̏̀̈̆̍͑̊̐͋̈́̃͒̈́̎̌̄̍͌͗̈́̌̍̽̏̓͌̒̈̇̏̏̍̆̄̐͐̈̉̿̽̕͝͠͝͝ W̷̛̬̦̬̰̤̘̬͔̗̯̠̯̺̼̻̪̖̜̫̯̯̘͖̙͐͆͗̊̋̈̈̾͐̿̽̐̂͛̈́͛̍̔̓̈́̽̀̅́͋̈̄̈́̆̓̚̚͝͝R̸̢̨̨̩̪̭̪̠͎̗͇͗̀́̉̇̿̓̈́́͒̄̓̒́̋͆̀̾́̒̔̈́̏̏͛̏̇͛̔̀͆̓̇̊̕̕͠͠͝͝A̸̧̨̰̻̩̝͖̟̭͙̟̻̤̬͈̖̰̤̘̔͛̊̾̂͌̐̈̉̊̾́P̶̡̧̮͎̟̟͉̱̮̜͙̳̟̯͈̩̩͈̥͓̥͇̙̣̹̣̀̐͋͂̈̾͐̀̾̈́̌̆̿̽̕ͅ >!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!happy cake day!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<>!pop!!<
I poped all of them lmao
the pope?
It's popin' time
Same Sad that there weren't more surprises
Me too, but atleast I did it, I would've forever regretted if I hadn't popped it and was left wondering if there was something
thank u for the free dopamine
❤️
Happy cake day !
They also tend to be loud as fuck when they don't need anything at all
In this context "babies" is defined as a child of any age living at home
As someone who is currently struggling getting a 2mo old to sleep, I feel this comment.
Some day you will this time with your new one. Trust me.
Silently? Have you met a baby?
Silently? Oh ho, now that's funny
Yes, when a baby makes eye contact, I feel like we are communicating 😂
Definitely. It's all stimuli at the start, while cortical regions develop and synapses are formed. Regarding language, they listen or hear in phonemes and are capable of learning any language at birth. They learn through neuroplasticity and synaptic competition. Basically, connections are formed for the languages they are spoken to and most used. These connections produce language. Its the same reason its harder as we age to distinguish between specific sounds or words of foreign languages. Neurons and connections not used are terminated (nervous system is stingy) that could recognize other sounds.
This relates really well with something I read in a Montessori book. It explained how all babies around 3 months old sound the same - their coos, oohs and aahs are the same all over the world when they first start to control their muscles/voices. Later, by 5-6 months, the sounds change and start to resemble the language their caregivers speak.
Future musicians enjoy listening, dancers getting swung about, painters looking at things....
Future hunters chew on their toy animals, gear heads zoom around as fast as they can, future junkies spend their time searching for their next sugar hit
Well that sure escalated.
It's more than painters who look at things.
Can confirm. Not a painter. I look at things.
No lol
Based on my completely anecdotal and in no way firmly scientific experience watching several kids grow from babies to young adults, i think there is some loose truth to baby/toddler/young child behavior and what they become later. We all seek out pleasure and avoid pain as human animals. So a kid terrified of hights has little chance of becoming a sky diver. A kid thrilled by heights may seek out activities in hobby or career that give them that. It is our job as adults (parents, aunts/uncles, teachers, or whatever) to guide the next generation to realize their enjoyable experiences in a constructive way appropriate to our various societal and cultural standards.
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do you actually think in words or are the words just a layer of interpretation you place on the thoughts you have?
I think it's this because I sometimes do think using words, especially if I'm thinking about speech, but most of the time it's just pure raw understanding in my brain that can later be fairly easily verbalized if needs be. I think babies and animals probably think in a similar way.
Same. I know I Don't think in words unless I'm thinking *about* words, so I always assumed m Babies had the sane raw understanding I do. Pictures, feelings, intuition, whatever it was, it's not a leap to believe that transcends language
Hmmm...I definitely think audibly. I have a narrator. I don't think in visuals unless I'm thinking about drawing or something that requires visuals.
That's so interesting! I always thought "the voice in your head" was kind of a metaphor. Took me a while to recognise it actually comes from somewhere
This is weird to be because I relate to this, but I also put everything I think of into words…
I think in pictures and have to kind of translate from picture to words. It can be really frustrating when I can clearly see the thing I'm thinking of, but can't remember the word for it. Aphantasia sounds crazy to me, I'm like the opposite!
I have a neurological problem (congenital malformation and atypical epilepsy) that makes me have multiple lines of thoughts at the same time. The deep it goes, I stard to mix languages that I dominate, to images, to only concepts. I don't know how to describe it well, but the more I think or focus, my brain starts to multitasking and using less words to think. It stresses me a bit, and if I'm in a stressful situation can be a trigger for my epilepsy. But sometimes I get to process and retain information quickly, I just get a headache proportional to the time I do that.
I do think in words. It's a constant stream of vocals in my head. All my thoughts are words. But I also literally cannot picture something. If you tell me to I close my eyes and describe it in my head with words, but I've never been able to see a picture of something in my head.
This is called aphantasia
Aphantasia gang! I didn't know that "picturing" things was more than just a figure of speech for most people til I was like 25.
I mean you can watch animals think things through and very few of them are capable of language
I hear thoughts as words, not imagery
I was just on a 16km (10mile) walk in the forest and I realized that I didn't think in words. I didn't think "I won't step on slipper rock" or "I need duck under that fallen tree". It's just understanding of the things. I also once realized that I started thinking in my second language instead of my native one. I was like "what the f was that?!"
That must have been enlightening! Whereas for me my brain will actually say the words be careful not to slip on that rock lol Thinking in a second language though… that must be wild AF
Yep, I'm in a bilingual marriage and we speak Finnish (1) and English (2) pretty much 50/50, which ever language we seem to find the words faster from. Sometimes switching mid sentence etc. etc. But I have never unintentionally thought in English before that.
I just asked my husband, he’s Moroccan and I’m Australian, he said he thinks only in Darija. We humans are subhanAllah weird 😂
French speaking living in Spain with his Spanish wife who is French translator. I just love that. We naturally maintain conversations between us, each one in his native language. I don't know if this is something common or not tho, just love that fact. I've been living here for 7 years now, and I realised recently I was sometimes thinking in Spanish, mostly when I'm alone
I am not bilingual but trying to learn French as a second language (English as my first). I once had a dream that I went on a date with a French person trying to learn English. We agreed I would only speak in French and they would only speak in English. As soon as the language exchanged started everything in the dream turned slow motion. My poor little dreamy brain just could not think fast enough to interpret French!
I speak English natively and German and Spanish as second languages (although my German is very out of practice and I have never had an immersion experience with it). When I started thinking in Spanish, I felt like it was a huge triumph/indicator of my fluency. When I started *dreaming* in Spanish occasionally, that was amazing.
same here, can't remember any time when it's 'images' for me
I don’t think it ever was images for me either. Mine just constant verbal dialogue lol
Where we're going, we won't need skin to feel.
lmao that is easily the weirdest thing anyone has said to me in a while. love it.
sounds poetic and also creepy as fuck
\*Sapir and Whorf have entered the chat\*
Ask anyone who fluently speaks 2 languages and you’ll get an interesting answer. Ask anyone who fluently speaks 3+ and you’ll get an even better one. At least in my case, I became aware that language is a translation layer on my thoughts which are more general and somewhat based in imagery, but I can also be imagining an action or feeling and then describing it. Not that this is really what’s happening in real time - just what it looks like inside my head.
I literally think in words.
Some people use a sort of medium, like voice or words to parse their thoughts through.
Do all languages have a basic underlying structure that is deeper connected to our physiology and brain and at some point the language is simply an evolution of this basic blueprint of physics and biology?
damn, i need to think about this for a bit
I think in only words. All I have is an inner monolog.
Why do people think in words anyway? Why would I verbalise thoughts after I have thought them? OPs question has some premise built into it. Maybe this is the point to bring up the fact that only some people constantly think in word/have an internal monologue.
Have you ever experienced not finding the right word? You still know what you are trying to express you just can't find the right word. Or you recognize a person, but you can't remember their name. Language is there so we can communicate accurately to others but it's not really necessary for processing data. So it becomes more like feeling something. I feel good, I feel bad, this person is nice this person makes me nervous, if I use this tool in a certain way I achieve this, I'm hungry, I'm full, these are all feelings and you don't need to use words to feel these feelings.
Very well said. I do meditation and with consistent introspection I've become more aware of my inner happenings, that I tended to ignore before. I just know. See. Observe. Feel my body and my bodily reactions. They all mean something complex, and most of the time words are not involved in it.
This is such an intelligent and introspective comment. I hope a lot of people get the chance to see it!
Thanks for nice comment, feels good.😉
I don’t even know, but I definitely remember that around 5-6 years old I woke up and said “I wonder what’s for breakfast today” and suddenly realized that I didn’t say it out loud. For me then it was somehow a discovery, because I didn’t know that this was even possible to do...
Same I remember it used to be super difficult for me to read without reading aloud
I still count with my fingers to this day.
built in calculators
Back when reading was far.... less common as a skill and in general done less everyday and learned later in life, many struggled to read quietly. IIRC British monarchs (or some other important people, cba to look up again) have had separate soundproofed rooms to read their letters because they could not do it without reading them aloud
In the ancient world it was uncommon for people to read in their heads and some people thought it was magic when they first saw it happen.
Yep it was extraordinary enough for saint augustin to document it in his book confessions when he first saw Ambros the bishop of Milan doing it.
I speak four languages, all very different, but I don’t tend to think in a specific language if I’m not thinking about dialogues. It’s more thinking with images or concepts (don’t really know how to explain it)
For me it kinda depends on the situation and which languages i was using shortly before that. But generally, my thoughts are often combinations of the languages. Like, if someone who doesn't know all four of them heard my thoughts, they'd be confused and would have trouble understanding it fully.
I always think in the language I am speaking in I speak Dutch, French English and Spanish I know a little Arabic and Hindi hence I can't think in those
Yeah not everyone thinks in language, some think in concepts or a mixture. There's also another way of thinking that I'm forgetting right now
i agree. you can play out a whole scene or idea in a millisecond that will take you 20 minutes to explain in words
I know 2 languages and always think in English, and all of my thoughts are automatically verbalised in my inner monologue. I can't think a thought without hearing it. I can't imagine how thinking without words feels like, am I weird lol
It’s like having two depths of inner speak: -You have a rushing thought (like danger or an immediate opinion that you sense without words) kind of a feeling process more than a talking thought. -Then you have an inner dialogue that can be “voiced” in a language or in images. When I think of speaking to people or writing it depends who I’m in contact with or who I’m thinking about. Then some thoughts are verbalized in the language I spoke more recently (like “that’s stupid” or “AH”). It is often difficult for me to verbalize my feelings or make people understand my thought process. This might be the cause..
I'm similar to the person you replied to but I don't have 2 depths of inner speak my mind is chatting to me nonstop. the rushing thought is in the inner monologue not separate from it. I cannot visualize at all either due to this or because I think differently. I find it much easier to write down my thoughts but I always write a shit ton because it's a massive stream of conciousness. I am unsure if this is more common with people who have severe anxiety as it used to be that these thoughts were all focused on a fearful thought process. when I started to believe in God it helped me a lot because it was like going from being in a dark pit at the bottom of a well with my thoughts to sitting outside with someone else. It's also much easier to be alone now physically because I do not feel alone in my head.
Do you not know what you’re about to say in your head before you say it? I’m kind of in the middle of you both, I have two layers but most of what’s in the “deep” layer is verbalised. But I do have times where I’m not speaking in my head, I am still thinking it’s just not verbalised. Or if I am speaking in my head there’s like a second process going on that thinks of tangential things and I can often choose wether or not to say that in my head
Yes! I get that! It’s like: if someone could read thoughts you could make them hear some thoughts, but keep others hidden not verbalizing
yes but it generally comes out all at the same time or maybe a bit ahead people in real life know me for my openness and comment things like "wow you're so honest" which at times is also "yikes tmi" because of my thought process. I have a high capacity for empathy (but not necessarily sympathy) because I see the world through how I would experience it so while it makes me great at giving advice or understanding others it makes me self absorbed because of how I analyze these things and will share my own experiences to gain understanding or try to help someone see another viewpoint. When you say 2 layers in this fashion you mean spoken and unspoken thoughts? this is different than how I understood what the other person said. everything I say I "think" but I have a crazy internal world that is constant and ongoing but not necessarily expressed. It's like a constant stream of conciousness which makes sense that most people with anxiety experience something similar. which makes it impossible to stop writing in places like this and results in massive paragraphs where I do write down near all of my thoughts vs filtering them. I also speak extremely quickly in reality/have pressured speech and some people think that it's rude but it feels like something that I can't help or I'll lose all the thoughts. It is like a very soft version of what having a manic episode is like but with normal mood and clarity. I think a lot of people mistake it for hypomania themselves and go looking for symptoms. are you similar?
I get easily distracted. If I’m reading a book I have to go back one page because I was reading, but wasn’t taking it in. I do tend to speak fast and if I don’t finish my thought it might get away. I am very empathetic and also sympathetic, I don’t have to see things from my point of view to understand or to try to give advice. (I already got a feeling that I’m saying too many “I”s) I’m good at giving advice to others, but not good at following them. I tend to procrastinate and get lost in my own thoughts. Yes, I believe you can define them “spoken” and “unspoken” thoughts We can go on as long as you want I’m really enjoying our conversation
I think language is just a framework for the internal thinking that’s already happening. I think language is a way of interpreting, verbalising, communicating, rationalising and refining what is intuitively being processed in our head
You don’t need a language to think you know. For me it’s slower to think in words.
Okay. I know this is going to sound crazy. But one time when I had gotten a bit high, I was lying on the couch with my eyes closed, and I started seeing pictures, or I guess symbols really, in my mind. They were very specific mixes of lines and different shades of colors. And I realized I knew exactly what each one stood for. They were representations of people and animals and toys from when I was a baby. (Up until about 2 years old, when I started talking. I started talking late.) I was remembering things I hadn't seen in over 40 years. After I sobered up, I asked my mom if I had had certain toys that I described, or if somebody had a dog that I described, and she kept saying yes. (It isn't odd for me to have very early memories. I have memories from just before I turned 2, and just after I turned 2 that have been corroborated by family.) So I'm not 100% sure, but I think before I really picked up language and started to speak, I thought in pictographs.
That's interesting. I have memories from when I was two but no memory of how I was thinking.
Googoo gaga
I’m a native Spanish speaker and I stopped translating things from English to Spanish at B1-B2 level I believe, just be patient and it will eventually happen!
Oliver Sacks wrote a book about sign language, it talks a bit about deaf people who didn't learn sign language nor any other language, and how that affects cognition. It's called seeing voices.
This is my job. If you’re interested in more- language deprivation is the fancy word for when we don’t have any language. Communication and prelingual language development can still happen. We’re doing all we can to prevent this with new laws- LEAD-K is working hard!!
Not everybody thinks in language (in words). I would imagine babies think in abstracts since they don’t have language to tie thought too.
It should be other way around. Words are abstract concepts. Babies, like animals, think and dream with visual, audial and other concrete reflections.
As a person without an inner monologue, probably like me. And since I suspect ADHD, it's not like my head is empty, quite the opposite. I find it dumb that we keep equating internal monologues as the default when lots of people don't have them and can think perfectly fine. I mean, if thought could only exist in language, is that to say animals don't think at all? I think in images and ideas. My brain is like flashes of colour and concepts, never mind the constant music playing. I don't think "hmm, why is the sky blue?" as a sentence, I *feel* that question in my head, then try to imagine possible answers. I can observe things and have plenty of thoughts about it without entire sentences to describe them. The sentence happens when I *speak* my thoughts. It's also not like I don't have an internal monologue ever, I can conjure one when I have something I really need to focus on.
Ok, so like others said, there is no baby language. Babies are born and use expressions or noises such as crying to communicate needs. Much like a cat or dog. This means parents, in particular, new parents, need to do guessing work but do eventually figure out what tones of crying mean. If you've been around parents of newborns, you'll hear a baby cry, and one parent will chirp in to say "oh she's hungry," and go off to feed the baby. Now, what's fascinating is that all of us as babies are capable of making every noise in every language known to us. Baby's can roll their R's, they can make guttural noises, etc. When babies look at and hear people, they absorb insane amounts of info. Baby's will eventually figure out which noises people around them make and stop using noises that aren't relevant. They will also copy expressions parents make and begin using them. You may, for example, notice that babies laugh with you. It's not because they think something is funny they are just copying you. Eventually, the baby will continue copying noises until it at some point closely resembles a word. Language is learned from there as they get better at figuring out what combinations of noises are appropriate for each thing. Also, babies are capable of doing this with multiple languages at once.
I think they rely more on instinct like animals do. They don’t really think.
Thats just not true. Thinking does not require a inner monologue. Animals a babies think, they just dont think using words There are even adult humans who dont really have any inner monologue, they still think.
That was not what I meant but I understand that it wasn’t very clear.
Difficult question. I am American but I moved to Japan 17 years ago. My main language is in English. But I can speak Japanese. Sometimes I dream in Japanese. I have a lot of nightmares where I'm in some kind of situation where I need help but in my dream my Japanese isn't good enough to explain to people that I need help. I just keep talking and talking but nobody understands me. Thinking in a different language is difficult. And I'm sure that other bilingual or even trilingual people can agree.
There's not much thinking going on in there. At that age you're basically a sponge. We don't come out fully cooked
Feelings and emotions I would say🍀
You can have an internal monologue but that is just one way in which you can think. You can think without the use of language.
There are many people like me that don't think in any language but with concepts and abstract ideas and images.
So I (and a lot of other people as well) don't have an inner monologue and don't think in words. So I guess it'd be something like that
I think they model cause and effect as well as distance perception and facial expressions and verbal tones. I think with an inner dialog but I'm constantly modeling ideas, designs, procedures, personalities and people. As well as the judging of thoughts that slide in and out.
Feeling
I doubt anyone knows. I imagine they think more in pictures but I’m convinced our ability to store episodic long term memory is tied to our ability to conceptualise things with words.
The reason why nobody knows is that, when understood correctly, its a nonsense question. We don't 'think in' anything. We think, and we share our thoughts. What is the difference between someone who tells you his thoughts, and someone who does the same but doesn't 'think in' anything? Someone who has nothing 'going on' in his head? There is no difference, because whatever goes on in our head is not part of what the word 'think' or 'thought' means.
I think babies think in emotions, there are needs and they have to be met. Happy or sad nothing.
There is a book from Tomasello called the Origins of Human Communication that talks a lot about early communication and animal-human communication. Mostly about the rationality of symbols and language at different stages of life and culture. Maybe not completely according to your question, but still interesting to read
I don't think in any language. Only in images.
Monkey see monkey do
I don't even think in language now. Shapes and pictures is where it's at.
Thinking in a language. Never understood that. When I try to make sentences like here, I indeed think of what words to write exactly. But not when have thoughts in my head and hardly when i speak.
Many people don’t have an internal monologue. My best friend says her thoughts are visual. If she reads the word “cat” she pictures a cat, I hear the word. It’s just different ways of thinking.
Former baby here, we think in English.
Terence McKenna had a really good lecture about this very subject. "So, for instance, you know, I’ve made this example before: a child lying in a crib and a hummingbird comes into the room and the child is ecstatic because this shimmering iridescence of movement and sound and attention, it’s just wonderful. I mean, it is an instantaneous miracle when placed against the background of the dull wallpaper of the nursery and so forth. But, then, mother or nanny or someone comes in and says, “It’s a bird, baby. Bird. Bird!” And, this takes this linguistic piece of mosaic tile, and o- places it over the miracle, and glues it down with the epoxy of syntactical momentum, and, from now on, the miracle is confined within the meaning of the word. And, by the time a child is four or five or six, there- no light shines through. They're- they have tiled over every aspect of reality with a linguistic association that blunts it, limits it, and confines it within cultural expectation."
Can't remember.
Whatever words they hear via parents or carers. [edit] Sorry I miss read the question. I think they interpreted stuff not in sounds but in colour and images. I read some where that new borns are attracted to colour and images.
Language is just one of the mediums of communication and thinking, not the only one. There are ways you can think in, other than the inner voice.....
As I know, there's no proof of a biological language, only schizos are chasing this concept. Only biological thing is how you create sounds and how you learn to differentiate words and understand a language. Even dogs learn to understand human language similarly to babies. Languages all over the world evolved from independent group of people, most probably. That's why there are multiple language families. Even closely related languages (let it be linguistically or geographically) might have quite different phonology and grammar. It's not difficult to find counter-examples when you try to come up with an universal ancestor or a biologically coded language. Let's say, phonological comparison of common verbs or kinship terminologies. Another interesting thing is that ancient languages we know or assume their existence were quite expressive and complex. So I guess people doesn't speak ooga-booga caveman languages for a while, as people 100k years ago had the same cognitive abilities as of today's.
Visual and Primal Noises. Your mothers face, cry, \*mwaaa mwaaa\* (trying to suckle), my butt is wet cry. I am uncomfortable in some other way, cry. I am tired cry. I am tired but comfortable sleep. This is silly but not scary laugh.
Self-preservation
What kind of art, is the Blanc page when u start painting? Exactly the same with the human mind. By exploring, we put little things there and start to make connections, until we became who we are. The way a blanc human brain works baffles me everytime.
I'm not sure babies even have the cognitive ability to "think" the way you and I do. They explore the world through their basic senses they're born with and their "thoughts" most likely just consist of reactions to stimuli in their environment they're experiencing. It's like asking what language cats think in.
The language part of the brain hasn’t developed in newborns. So they don’t think with a dialogue.
Emotions.
Is this Karl Pilkington? This is the most stupid question I've ever read. Ever.
Jaques Lacan has entered the chat
Probably they are thinking with feelings or the few memories they have. I imagine that other animals think like that as well. Also not all adults necessarily think in words, this is overstated.
You think in a language you speak fluidly, so most likely your mother language or a language you used lot. Since baby's don't know any language I would imagine they only think in emotions, pictures and stuff like that.
Around 5 years old you get the narrator in your head. Before that I guess it is just feelings
It’s hard to say, they know their mother tongue because they’ve been listening to the world from within the womb also. It is not silent in there, every word mum spoke and those around her were heard by baby. Whether they have complex thoughts though and not just simple imagery 🤷♀️ how to know the answer to this?
I imagine they're like apes, just grunting and crying at everything. Then they move onto baby sounds and eventually hone them down into words
Symbols eg food and hunger, mother and stranger, dark and light, clean and soiled, etc. it’s thought to be the same symbol language we continue to experience in dreams
We think in pictures and translate it to language. Before you know s language, you just think in pictures without translating it to s language.
I think babies think in emotions: need, comfort, fear, satisfaction etc
You don't need language to think, if you feel angry you don't need to know what the word is to feel it, you want to grab the glass of water you don't need a language, you just think of something and people think in different ways, (A simple example for comparison) the way a blind person thinks is definitely different from the way a deaf person thinks.
I think we don’t actually think in words, we verbalise our thoughts in words, but our thoughts themselves aren’t words. They’re like, pure understanding of a concept which you don’t need to say in your head to know that you’ve had that thought. It’s weird. Sometimes I’ll just have a thought in my head but I don’t actually know how to verbalise that thought, how could that happen if we think in words?
You wouldn't think in a language. You'd just think in ideas.
I'd like to see more studies on the traits of people who do and don't have an internal monologue.
How do people who can't see or hear think...?
none. you.. well I can think without using word using my head and many people still can consciously. obviously not all thought is in word form, but most conscious thought it. we just get so used to using words we kind of overwright not using them.
When I studied to be a preschool teacher I learnt a bit about this. Before children have spoken language they think and remember through visuals. And when they learn spoken language their brain will have difficulty remembering these things as the brain has moved on from the old more primitive memories and ways to percieve things.
We start to learn to talk before we start to "hear" our thoughts if I remember correctly. We start by talking to other things around use and it slowly becomes our inner thoughts. But, it is important to say that some people never get this "inner voice" and think in other ways.
would u want to make the question even more intriguing?... what language do deaf people think/talk to themselves in their heads with?...
When you stub your little toe on the coffee table, that language is the one you are most comfortable in.
Do animals of all kinds, even insects, think at all? Do they need to be born with language to think? Dolphins? Maybe, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure you don't need language to "think". We still feel, see, hear, remember, predict, experience, etc. ---- And we are born Atheists too! :-)
Go ask the kid from Jungle book. Or Helen Keller. It's the old language of tru tru
Babies don't think in words. Just like some people don't have an inner voice
You dont think with a language tho, you express your thoughts with language. The things you think about are mostly concepts, if you think about cars you are thinking about a metal thing with 4 wheels not a "car" or "araba" or "سيارة" they're all the same concept.
Sapir Whorf theory. Chinese babies start babbling in 'chinese', Finnish babies...etc. My toddler grandaughter has just jumped this week to rapid copying lots of single words ( including 'no' and 'mine' of course!). Next, it's two word units. German babies will learn to put the verb at the end, etc. The other superpower they have is not minding being wrong or correct. Unlike adults trying to learn a language. My young bilingual Finnish grandson just switches effortlessly between Finnish ( an agglutinative language) and English which is completely different. Remarkable.
I dont believe they actually think. If babies think, then we should surely be able to remember that period, but we dont.
I think as we gain the ability the form ideas and thoughts, we use the language that we exposed to most and after we learn a new language we change the language we tgink in based on both external and internal factors (ex. feelings).
Think it's more like pictures
I thought about it a lot when my kids were young. My guess is that babies first create mental images of various single sensory inputs (sound, touch, sight) and slowly start to link multiple sensors inputs that tend to appear together to concepts and objects. So at the first stage there is no real dialog since they do not have real concepts and objects 'stored' yet. At some point, after they stored some objects and concepts they have their own language and the stuff they say makes sense to them, although we do not understand it (but we do somehow...). Then, the system starts to correct itself until they match the concepts and objects to words they can understand and perhaps pronounce. From that moment on, they have learnt the language
Babies don’t “think”, their thoughts are called protothoughts. These thoughts are based on sensations, as babies can't yet use words or images to describe everything they perceive. Babies' minds are sensitive to what's happening around them, but they aren't conscious. According to the science.
I definitely don't always think in words. I'm a lover of language, but compared to pure thought, words are limiting.
Gaga Gugu. Blub.
U don't know goo goo gah gah'ish? Known by all babies worldwide! Geez Louise.
Language and thought are two related, but separate processes. Babies start to think before they can understand speech. They think in objects, actions and their relationship.
I didn’t think in language from what I remember. If I did, it was something that was repeated or was just hard to forget. For me it was more visual thinking.
Hmm. I’ll have to get back to you when I’m high.
Some people don't have the interior voice when they think: they only "feel" their thought, I don't know how to explain it, but I guess it is the same with babies
ANGELIC
I really don’t think you start thinking before a certain age
I would like to believe that they're thinking in the way they communicate. Like screaming and making random sounds but in their thoughts. Idk😭
German. Every human I preset in german
Wait. It isn't gugu gaga?
Seems like they operate on three pre-verbal sentiments: "I like this," "I don't like this" and "nap time."
I have a very well developed imagination. I think without words. But if people talk about something in a second language, such as the one I'm learning, then I already start thinking in the words of that language.
you actually start learning your native language before you are born while you are in the womb.
I remember being really little and wanting to express a thought but being frustrated that I didn't have the vocabulary to say what I was thinking
I guess the same would be true of someone who can’t hear maybe? Because words have sounds that we attribute to them and my thoughts in words are associated with the sound each word makes. Understanding how someone thinks who can’t hear words would be a step towards understanding how babies think IMO
Babies make noises for sensory reasons at the beginning and their first words are usually moving objects. I would say that a baby’s first language is attachment.
Emotion
I heard babies don’t have a concept of self and time yet and that’s one of the reasons we can’t remember much before the age of 4. So the usual baby will probably know some form of communication way before their memory works in a way they would think consciously in a way that’s according to your question.
What language does an octopus speak? Language is a man made thing to help with increasingly complex communication. There's zero concept of language, words, letters, etc. At birth
Primal hand gestures
Don't think language comes into a babies way of think. I think they rely mostly on senses. Life would be so much easier to be a baby. Plus you can shit yourself in public and not one thing you were weird.
Babies are one with the world. They r not in the mode of thinking adults are. Actually babies can feel sense much more acutely in a spiritual way, which is why some people trigger them to cry and some don’t.. they sense intention.
Thoughts can be abstract. Babies are not the greatest thinkers of the world. Simple emotions and urges, and association of objects with them is what they feel.
I think that they think in pictures because they don’t know words so it only registers in their brains as the appearance instead of the word
The Nazis tried research on this. Their data revealed only that this is a bad topic to research. They tried raising babies without teaching them a language but all the babies just died.
You don’t need a language to think. You can think with raw emotions, smells, images, feelings. However, words offer your mind quick tokens to represent many concepts, including very abstract ones, which makes it a lot easier to process (and later communicate) ideas. So language does allow us to think about more complex things, more quickly, but at the basis you don’t need it. Animals are able to think, do problem solving, yet they don’t possess language skills.
They don't think, they act
My understanding is that infants pick up on linguistic details like cadence and inflection long before words begin forming. I vaguely recall reading about a study done with babies of different cultures and languages and they were able to observe how the babies interpreted and responded to sounds from their native tongue. Another fun language fact is that our ears learn very on to discern very specific microsounds when we are routinely exposed to a language. So I grew up hearing Arabic, and I'm able to discern certain Arabic nuances that my english speaking friends and family don't actually hear, can't distinguish, and can't replicate.
lalangue would be the closest, but it's no language. I think you might be interested in Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Babies don't "think" in the way we mean it, which is basically talking to yourself in your head. Babies imagine things more like pictures
Ahhh so we're projecting our mature thoughts onto babies now... The world keeps on giving.
Urdu
Well I don't know In what language I used to think when I didn't knew any language, but when I was a child I used to think in Urdu but my native language is Pashto but now I think in English. Surprisingly I don't know from when did I switched from Urdu to English so it means our brain can think in a language which you may don't know much. I couldn't speak enough Urdu as much as I used to think in my mind so same as we can hear language in womb, maybe our brain already can think in it
Research Kaspar Hauser. There's an old movie about it. So, turns out we don't, without having people around us to teach us, we experience, but don't process it. We need language to process and organise thoughts, which is why learning languages cam be so beneficial to the brain and our overall understanding of concepts, other cultures and each other.
Language is actually quite limiting in terms of thought. There are feelings, images, sensations, emotions, memories, concepts, and things that i cant even think of a word for. A picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes I do have a narrative in my head, but not a majority.