Can abstract thought exist without a language? What does Veeky Forums think of linguistic relativity?

Can abstract thought exist without a language? What does Veeky Forums think of linguistic relativity?

abstract thought as an abillity to speculate on the future and making generalizations could be achieved just with images, to what degree i don't know. If you wanted to communicate your abstractions in a form of images, then you would probably have used a symbolic picture, which you could classify as a form of a language?

ever had a moment when you know a concept but can't remember the word for it?

>Can abstract thought exist without a language?
Yes of course. Most of your thoughts are not words, you think in images and abstractions.

So sharing knowledge of abstract concepts definitely requires language, but concepts even for the individual are especially word-heavy, even when you've understood something intrinsically, it still makes sense that you've understood an explanation of it in written form.

I would imagine if I had to internalize the concept of gravity without language I would just imagine a bunch of stuff falling but this would greatly limit my ability to generalize. I'm counting math as a language here, obviously.

If I'm using pictures to understand how a protein is being synthesized inside a cell, I'm only able to do it because I can interpret the words that describe the process itself. Other than that, sure.

Abstract art can manage to convey meaning or invoke emotion without adhering to any strict format or rules, so couldn't really be counted as a language. I think it could be argued that more complex concepts and ideas could be conveyed in this way if you knew your target well enough. (Maybe they feel strongly about rain and you could use a rain-like feature to guide their communicate a sad concept such as a death in the family or something).

And think about psychologists, especially psychiatrists for traumatized children. Often they look for signs outside of language to narrow down what a specific issue is, however this is typically guided via language to discover the non-language clue.

A language doesn't necessarily consist of words or signs or even definitions. Most times we communicate by approximation. The most obvious indications that language is like this is found in art.

Or because you've seen exemplary videos of how they are synthesized.

Everything is language, user.