What came first: thought or language?

[Mellusia]

I won't lie, I ripped this off a t.v. show, but I actually started to think about this more and more. I have no particular stance, but I'd like to hear others thought about this.

To think is to be human, but how can you think if there are no words or ideas to represent thought? Would a language or some sort of system need to be apparent before you can actually think? Or can you think of ideas without words?

Think about it >=D

[Casanova]

Is this a serious question? I find it hard to believe that anyone would really think that language came before thought. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand what you're proposing. I just see this as the musings of someone who finds it hard to comprehend thought without expression.

Think of it like this: Would you be stupid enough to put your hand in a fire over and over again, despite the fact that you get burned every single time, just because you refuse to tell yourself that it's a dangerous thing to do? No, of course you wouldn't. It would be foolish of you. Now take away the conscious decision to not tell yourself that fire is dangerous. Would you still put your hand to the flame over and over again? No. Why? The answer: Just because you are unable to express how dangerous something is doesn't mean that you don't understand how dangerous something is.

In short: knowledge does not require expression.

Just out of curiosity, what show did you see this on?

[Mellusia]

I put it in this section here because I didn't want some spammy one liners, so yeah, legit ;D

I saw it comedy show called "Corner Gas". It was just a small 1 minute segment out of the entire episode, but the way they were spinning it made it seem thought provoking.

And I actually was a off about the discussion. I re-watched the episode and the discussion followed as thus:

"Does language come before thought, or does thought come before language?"

"You need thought before you can have language. Without conscious thought, how can language exist?"

So the discussion revolved more about language's existence more than thought, my bad >_<

Otherwise, I agree with all you said above =D