[GuyOnTilt]

Nice. I like these topics.

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Does having words for things determine if you can think about them?

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Instinctively, my answer would be yes. When I think, I think in English words and can "hear" my thoughts. For someone without words for certain things or abstract thoughts, it it hard for me to imagine them being able to think about them, at least with the same depth that I'm able to. At the far end of the spectrum, there are the deaf. Those who have been mute and deaf since birth can't think the same way you or I can, since we use spoken language, but are they still capable of abstract thought? People born deaf have shown to have a really hard time getting to the same level of intelligence as the hearing; it's not even close, sadly. Something I remember reading on the deaf and language a long time ago... a researcher had visited an island where deafness had been rampant for several generations. He wrote about one old lady in particular who would sign in her sleep, presumably the equivalent of us talking in our sleep during a dream. The same way we use our native language to think, they use theirs. So while I can "hear" my thoughts in English, it seems like deaf people "see" their thoughts in sign. But because sign is a less complex language, they seem to be able to think in less abstract ways.