I wonder what it must feel like to grow up never knowing or understanding language or what language even is. For one thing, it would be an incredibly lonely existence and I can’t imagine what the 27 year-old man in the podcast went through during his childhood and adulthood.
I had never thought of language as something that wasn’t already there in some way or another, that language was the basis for everything. I figured smaller humans (babies and toddlers) had their own sort of made-up language or something in the brain that worked similarly to language. But now listening to the podcast, my mind is kind of blown.
Listening about the woman who had the stroke, I was amazed by how she spoke of the “inner silence” she experienced after she no longer had a language or any real thoughts. She only was able to experience the current moment, rather than think about the past or future. That little voice wasn’t talking in her ear. She experienced silence for the first time, which I think is something really remarkable yet completely terrifying. Language is something I’m so used to, so I’m not sure how I would feel if it were turned off.