What Is Language For? Researchers Make the Case That It's a Tool for Communication, Not for Thought
linear languages, like English, permit us to talk about the loop only one step at a time,
Art Kleiner • The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies for Building a Learning Organization
It is not insignificant that the English language is 70 percent nouns, while Potawatomi is 70 percent verbs.
Perry Zurn • Curious Minds: The Power of Connection
Language is so important because it allows individual brains to connect, like neurons, to form a larger thinking system: a communal brain.11
Tim Urban • What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies
“So thinking is prior to language. What language contributes is to firm up certain particular ways of seeing the world and give fixity to them. This has its good side, and its bad. It aids consistency of reference over time and space. But it can also exert a restrictive force on what and how we think. It represents a more fixed version of the world... See more
Iain McGilchrist Quotes (Author of The Master and His Emissary)
My emphasis on language also comes from a deep conviction that language shapes our thoughts. You cannot answer a question that you cannot ask, and you cannot ask a question that you have no words for.