I Don’t Think in Any Language
Dmitri Prieto
When people find out that I have a dual ethnic identity, that I share Russian and Cuban origins, and that I had a childhood and adolescence that were also shared between the two countries, they often ask, “What language do you think in?”
The truth is that I learned Russian first, from my mom and her family in a railroad crossing village 150 km from Moscow, but at age three I began to come into regular contact with Cuban society. Encounters started becoming much more systematic when I started Cuban elementary school in Moscow.
From an early age, my dad would read to me in Spanish, and I would also hear it in my family circle here in Cuba. They were people from the east of the island, so many of the Spanish words I learned had different meanings from those here in the capital.
Because of all this, I could speak, read and write in both languages by the time I was around six or seven.
But the question “what language do you think in?” doesn’t make any sense to me (sorry for those who asked it of me).
It’s not that I’m embarrassed to publicly acknowledge what language my thoughts are in. No, not at all. It’s that I don’t use any language to think.
Ideas come to me in the form of images, associations of concepts and emotions, and only rarely as words.
Actually I don’t need any words to think.
So I find it funny what some philosophers and psychologists have said about the importance of words for thought.
To me, words are clearly important, but to organize thought, to shape it. When I think I don’t use words, but when I express ideas I obviously need them.
Then comes the hard part: When I have to turn ideas—not necessarily in order—into a sequence of words, which is something hard for me. That’s why it takes me an effort to write, which also explains the intermittency of my entries in Havana Times.
In fact, I can’t say that I like to write. For me it’s like putting thoughts in the prison of language. It’s like the linearization of something essentially non-linear, reducing into a single dimension what has many dimensions – perhaps an infinite number.
On the other hand it doesn’t bother me that people think in words. I find it rather interesting. In this case, to me it’s hard to imagine where ideas come from if they appear in words.
For me an idea is like a gift and the word is its packaging.
It’s interesting how we think in ways that are so different but that we can still manage to communicate.
This resonated so much with me. I thought it was odd that I don’t think in a language when it is such a common concept. Glad to know it is totally OK. 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
I’m not bilingual or anything and grew up in a standard single language environment. Even though I now speak a couple of other languages as well, I don’t remember ever having ‘thought” in any language. My thoughts are like some kind of fluctuating sensations…like electrical signals. If I want to, I can think in any of languages I speak but it feels incredibly slow and cumbersome. I only do it sometimes when I’m imagining a discussion with someone, so not very often and I find myself going back to the wordless thinking without noticing it. I don’t dream in any language either, and I don’t think there’s any language per se in them – I just understand everything.
Hello, I speak both english and italian since I was a child and I don’t think in any language either. That is why I came to read this article, I was searching for “I don’t think in any language” and this article came up. Thank you for writing it, I was beginning to think that I am not normal.
Hi, I grew up speaking English and Finnish at home, German in public surroundings and as a toddler, I spoke Korean with my friend. At school I had a debate with my class about language and thinking. This lesson confused me, because everyone seemed to take it as the obvious that people must think in a language, and of they don’t they must be uncivilized. However, I never find myself thinking in a constant monologue; just the thought of it confuses me. I think in a language if I am reading or writing something, sort of taking in and processing information. But when I am actually thinking about something, it’s never in a language. Thank you for this article, I now feel more at peace.