Dec 24, 2007

What language do I think in?

This question has bugged me for ages and even as a bilingual person I still have no definite answer. I speak two languages fluently: English, and my native language, Malayalam. Even though I speak both fluently, the only one that I can comfortably read or write is English. Anyone who has heard me on the phone with my parents knows that I can switch seamlessly between the two, so I'm guessing the same would theoretically apply to my thought process as in I could probably switch easily between the two. Other than those, I have attempted to learn these languages at various points of my secondary school education: Hindi, Sanskrit, and Spanish. I can't construct a proper sentence in any of those, so the only reason I'm mentioning it is to illustrate that I am horrible at picking up new languages. (In fact, part of the reason I picked Engineering in college: no language requirement)I know English because that's what I've been learning at school since I can remember and I know Malayalam from family and growing up in an area where it was the main spoken language. Ok, so that's my background. Now back to the ten dollar question.

This will sound stupid, but I've tried to catch myself off-guard during thought to see what language I conduct my business in. Obviously this doesn't work because you can't fool yourself. (Unless ofcourse you're "The Todd").
Welcome back. As I was saying, tricking myself doesn't work because I'm not smart enough to outsmart me. So the next best thing I could do was just try to analyze the very basics of my thought process. When I'm faced with a decision how do I analyze the choices? How do I rationalize or try to make sense of something? . The best answer I can come up with is that I don't think in a language per se. I think more in terms of concepts. Rather than lengthy sentences, it is usually clusters of abstract objects. The more I thought about that, the more it made sense. I bet this is how everybody thinks, even the monolinguals. Spoken language is too clumsy for thought. Language was constructed for clarity and context at the expense of speed. When you're thinking to yourself, you know the context and there's no need for clarity. Thinking in languages would immensely slow down the thought process.

Imagine you're waiting in line to order food. You don't think "I don't feel like a burger. I'm gonna go for the nuggets". In your mind that entire line of thought happens in about second as "no burger, mmm nuggets" That's because you don't have to explain to yourself that you don't feel like getting the burger. You already know that. No need for clarity. This is different than when you're practicing something in your head before saying it. Obviously, then you're going to think like an actual drawn out conversation because thats what you're practicing for. The type of thinking I'm referring to is the decision making kind.

Anyway, if people actually read this, leave a comment about how you think you think and if you're monolingual, bi, trans etc. I basically want to know if my theory about conceptual thinking is correct.
Thanks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure i think in english. Maybe not always in complete sentences, but occasionally.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.