My belief is, language doesn't have a strictly scientific explanation. It's associated with intelligence, and I don't know if intelligence is something that can be understood through the evolutionary perspective; that once we become language-using, meaning-seeking beings, then we've escaped the gravitational pull of biology. — Wayfarer

Doesn't have a "strictly" scientific explanation? How are you defining "science"? Language is certainly amenable to analysis, scientific or otherwise. True, language could be magic -- but I don't see any reason for taking that route.

I’m new to this myself. Would you use ‘thought’ instead of ‘intelligence’? I’m still trying to determine whether it’s true that ‘thoughts are "sentences in the head", meaning they take place within a mental language’. (Wikipedia.) — Brett

Let's separate "thought" from "language." Thought can happen without language is my belief, and there's good evidence for that. Thinking is not merely restricted to "sentences in the head." I've had colleagues argue that thinking and language are the same thing; I'm just not convinced of it.

There has been talk in decent times of "mentalese," for example. Which is interesting, but we know very little about it.

I did this to show that it is perhaps misleading to suggest that the reason we breath is to speak, and that to equate ‘language’ with some innate capacity is kind of leaning in this direction too - as there is no hard physical evidence for some ‘language module’ anymore than there is for some ‘conscious module’. — I like sushi

What's misleading is the near universal belief that language is for communication and evolved as such.

Also, no one is talking about a language module in your sense. If one can't talk about language as a separate (though obviously interactive) system of an organism, then let's also throw out study of vision, digestion, circulation, the nervous system, etc. -- after all, they're not completely separate from the rest of the body either. It's a trivial semantic digression you're making, without any motivation other than to apparently hear yourself talk.

Let's separate "thought" from "language." Thought can happen without language is my belief, and there's good evidence for that. Thinking is not merely restricted to "sentences in the head." I've had colleagues argue that thinking and language are the same thing; I'm just not convinced of it. — Xtrix

It would be well to recall that Einstein originally constructed his model of the universe out of nonverbal signs, 'of visual and some of muscular type.' As he wrote to a colleague in 1945: 'The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be "voluntarily" reproduced and combined.' Later, 'only in a secondary stage,' after long and hard labour to transmute his nonverbal construct into 'conventional words and other signs,' was he able to communicate it to others.

It would be well to recall that Einstein originally constructed his model of the universe out of nonverbal signs, 'of visual and some of muscular type.' As he wrote to a colleague in 1945: 'The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be "voluntarily" reproduced and combined.' Later, 'only in a secondary stage,' after long and hard labour to transmute his nonverbal construct into 'conventional words and other signs,' was he able to communicate it to others. — Galuchat

Certainly worth bearing in mind, yes.

It would be well to recall that Einstein originally constructed his model of the universe out of nonverbal signs, 'of visual and some of muscular type.' — Galuchat

That’s very interesting. It’s like he’s accessing some sort of ‘pure thought’ that we probably have but are unconscious of.

My queries are driven by an interest I have in children around 18 months of age, who are beginning to speak, and how they think, what they know and how language develops. It seems to me they know more than they can say simply because it takes time to develop clear speech. I know there’s a lot of research on this but I like developing my own thoughts on it from observation and conversation with others and a bit of idle research, i.e. at some point I’d rather go for a swim.

I know there’s a lot of research on this but I like developing my own thoughts on it from observation and conversation with others and a bit of idle research, i.e. at some point I’d rather go for a swim. — Brett

Good luck with that.