Language and Thought

"Language is the formative organ of thought. Intellectual activity, entirely mental, entirelyinternal, and to some extent passing withouttrace, becomes through sound, externalizedin speech and perceptible to the senses. Thought and language are therefore oneand inseparable from each other."
�Wilhelm von Hamboldt, German educator, linguist, and philosopherhttp://www.duke.edu




Wilhelm von Hamboldt idea, is that language is strongly connected to thought, therefore language and thoughts are complementary. This means that language is completed, somehow, by thoughts because we express them when we speak, and thoughts are connected to language because we use language to "form"our thoughts.

There are different opinions. Dr Johnson said language is 'the dress of thought', meaning that language is like the clothes that thoughts wear. This suggests that language does not influence thought. 
                                                http://www.usingenglish.com


This idea suggest that language is only a tool created to express thought, and thoughts are ideas in our heads  that can also be express as mental images.

There are other ways of thinking- animals do it without language. However, once the language virus has struck, it tends to take over
            (No author)
                                            http://www.usingenglish.com


There's also an other motion that combines both ideas and it says that thoughts can be express by other forms (not necessarily language), but language is a "virus", meaning by this that if you have language you will use it to express thoughts, but if you haven't got language (deaf-mute) you will think in other forms (mental image).