Thinking without language?

[Walter Yergen]

In article <3883471c$1 at runswick.octacon.co.uk>, "Paul Sampson" 
<paul.sampson at zztradezone.co.uk> wrote:

>Adrian Ian Skilling wrote in message <85v35b$5nn$1 at trog.dera.gov.uk>...
>
>>> but i think it is worth mentioning that we are constricted by the 
>>> language
>>> we choose to express ourselves. This has a great effect on our entire 
>>> mental
>>> development. It is harder to quantify feelings or ideas which no word 
>>> exists
>>> for, or adequately describe all types of love with the word. This 
>>> applies to
>>> animals too, except their language communication is not an oral 
>>> language.
>
>> Sorry. I don't mean to be offensive. But surely its obvious that it is
>> hard to express a concept or emotion that we don't have a word for. How
>> could it be any other way !!
>
>That's odd. I don't have a word for - and afaik *english* doesn't have a
>word for - the left testicle of an orang-utan born on any sunday in an
>odd numbered year of the fifteenth century BCE. So I suppose I'm unable
>to express such a concept. Oh dear. That's that then. Rats.
>
>

Ah!  But we can invent a word for it, if we have to. :-)

Getting everybody to agree in the word's definition is
something else.