Does Language Come Before Thought Or Do
Adrian Martinez
3 October 2014
English 12
Ms. Goodman
Food for Thought
Personally I believe that thought comes before language in any case or situation. This belief is made by my understanding of language. The way I see language is that there must be an idea before a word is made. For example, when language was first created, there must have been an idea of what the specific item or idea was, but there was no way to describe it verbally. The reason I believe that thought comes before language is due to the origins of language, the way words are developed, and how people use language to describe.
Before language was created, how would humans speak to each other? In my 9th grade humanities class I learned that people would draw symbols and then made sounds out of those symbols, which then created verbal words. In this sense thought definitely came before language.
Language was something that was developed specifically to describe things.
In the past i’m sure there was never a word for “hungry”. I believe that thought comes before language from the idea that before there was even a word to describe “hungry”, people would just eat. They did not have to know what the word hungry meant, they just knew that they were hungry. This also goes to the idea of how baby’s communicate, they don’t know what “I need a diaper change”, but when they do need one, they will tell us. Even thought they can’t communicate verbally, they are able to think about the idea of a diaper change.
Words are made specifically to describe. Before words were used to describe there was no way to made any differential between the same thing that had different characteristics. I believe a big part of language if not all of it, are descriptions. Before those adjectives were made, people could not tell other people differences, since there were no words to describe. Once adjectives were created people were able to give full descriptions about a specific item.
3 October 2014
English 12
Ms. Goodman
Food for Thought
Personally I believe that thought comes before language in any case or situation. This belief is made by my understanding of language. The way I see language is that there must be an idea before a word is made. For example, when language was first created, there must have been an idea of what the specific item or idea was, but there was no way to describe it verbally. The reason I believe that thought comes before language is due to the origins of language, the way words are developed, and how people use language to describe.
Before language was created, how would humans speak to each other? In my 9th grade humanities class I learned that people would draw symbols and then made sounds out of those symbols, which then created verbal words. In this sense thought definitely came before language.
Language was something that was developed specifically to describe things.
In the past i’m sure there was never a word for “hungry”. I believe that thought comes before language from the idea that before there was even a word to describe “hungry”, people would just eat. They did not have to know what the word hungry meant, they just knew that they were hungry. This also goes to the idea of how baby’s communicate, they don’t know what “I need a diaper change”, but when they do need one, they will tell us. Even thought they can’t communicate verbally, they are able to think about the idea of a diaper change.
Words are made specifically to describe. Before words were used to describe there was no way to made any differential between the same thing that had different characteristics. I believe a big part of language if not all of it, are descriptions. Before those adjectives were made, people could not tell other people differences, since there were no words to describe. Once adjectives were created people were able to give full descriptions about a specific item.