I watched a discovery or TLC show last night called “Wild Child” and aside from its liberal use of the word “progress”, it was a informative show. I know Im like 200 years late to this topic.
Basically, its about children who survived with minimal or no human contact. Several having been raised by wild dogs or wolves. This even has happened in modern day, the 2 latest cases were in the late 90s near Russia.
What I got from the show was that these children’s left brain hemisphere was severally atrophied (?), they have had no language and never used those neural pathways. Attempts to bring language into these children brought limited results, apparently if you dont start learning language early… you might pick up a vocabulary but not a sense of grammar.
Further, children that were raised with animals identified strongly with them and not shockingly imitated their behavior.
The question I had that the show didnt answer was: if these children have no language, what is their inner voice?
It seems that language structures so much of our consciousness, and even memory seems to be largely made up of associations between words (as well as sensory data).
I’m caught between two paths on this, either I’d say that thoughts in the purest sense cannot be put into language, only approximated represented, on the other hand I’d say it seems silly to talk of any thought that cannot be put into language. If you can’t describe what you are thinking it seems odd to say that you are thinking it.
Also, to answer your question very literally, whatever one thinks without language (daydreams might be a good example) by definition cannot be put into words.
One has to wonder whether it is simply because we haven’t found a method for teaching language to those who (for whatever reason) haven’t learnt it by, say, 5 or 6. These wild children might well be capable of learning language, just we’ve not worked out how to help them do it.
Also, why are we trying to teach these kids language? Just cover them in grease, put them in a ring and slap the show on cable.
id be more curious as to what the children who grew up with NO contact were like. i watched that show last night too (tho i missed the last 10 minutes cause my gf was tierd and dont like educational tv), and i thought the one chick who grew up in isolation was quite interesting.