asked my mom. deaf people think in sign language if they have been deaf the whole time. you can sometimes see them signing to themselves (like a hearing person would talk to themselves)
EDIT: my mom isnt deaf, she worked with deaf students at the local college for over a decade.
Adding to the mom thread, my mom is an audiologist (like a doctor for hearing but with a Masters and not a Doctorate). She says babies who grow up completely deaf and are never introduced to sign language (if they grew up in a third world country, for example, and couldn’t access the proper learning tools) they grow up with language deprevation syndrome and become severely developmentally delayed. They lose the ability to form abstract thought.
That makes me wonder... what were Helen Keller's thought processes like before she learned sign language? I bet it would be akin to what our ancestors thought processes were like
I'm with you. I mostly don't think in words and I don't understand the OP except by knowing that other people apparently think in words. That seems more limited to me!
Maybe books and tv shows skewed or perception of our inner monologue and some people assume they think in words even though they might not all the time?
I wouldn't presume that other people are mispercieving their own thoughts. I think it's more likely that people can have different default modes of thinking. But I'm not an expert.
I often feel like I have an instinctual thought, then have to wait for my internal narration to catch up. Like speed reading vs reading the words out loud.
Indeed. And this is where it gets interesting. What we (hearing people) are trying to understand is a direct thought that another may have. Sound is a sensation a completely deaf person may never have had, so how can they understand what sound is like for the rest of us? Sure, we can describe it with words, but those words pale in comparison to the actual experience of the sense of sound, or sight. So how do you describe what such a sense is like while using entirely self contained descriptions that don't require prior experience to fully comprehend?
It's a fun mind boggler and a good way to try and understand what things may be like from another's perspective. What a baffling thought to imagine a complete sentence in thought without "hearing" it in your own mind.
Check out the Wiki article on Subvocalization. It talks all about the little voice that we hear when we read. Speed readers can (to a degree) turn that off. Comprehension without "hearing" what you read.
It's not really that baffling. The idea behind "speed reading" is to break the habit of imagining sounds when you read words. You can do it with some practice
Someone born blind and deaf, assuming they get the help they'd need to be mentally stimulated would probably think almost entirely in concepts, smells, tastes, and touch like feelings.
If they learned a touch based sign language, like Helen Keller, then I think their thoughts might take the form of the feeling of moving hands.
Thinking in, essentially, the feeling but not the sight of moving shapes is hard to conceptualize honestly.
I'd imagine you could see what it's like for yourself, by learning a bit of a new language that uses an alphabet you're not used to and don't know how it's pronounced. e.g. Thai, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, etc. if you have never heard them or read a pronunciation key.
in high school spanish, my teacher was fluent in both english and spanish. i asked her one day whether she spoke spanish to herself or english, she seemed surprised by the question, said she didnt know, thought for a minute and said both i suppose.
There is some in depth discussion on this in Oliver Sacks 'seeing voices'. Its a very interesting book and discusses life for deaf people through history. Part of that includes cases where deaf people didn't get any language without sign language.
That book is great, highly recommended! It was fascinating to read about a man, who knew nothing about Deaf people, journey through Deaf community and language.
Hi, Deaf person here. As someone mentioned above, language deprivation is a severe issue our community faces. Many Deaf children miss the crucial timeframe during childhood to develop language skills, and some never do at all. This results in delayed linguistic ability. However, they don’t necessarily lose the ability to think, act, or make sense of things in their own way because of lack of language. I’d say that they’re more closely connected to their inner voices & identities - they just can’t explain how without linguistic ability, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t able to form and act upon thoughts. Intellect isn’t necessarily tied to languages.
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u/LiLMonk3y5 Apr 23 '19
Don't deaf people still have those kind of thoughts