I speak tamil and english and can distinctly see how the language drives some of my understanding. If you have a language that has evolved to describe 3D space, would be understand spatial ideas better/faster?
If we are pattern matching creatures, then the patterns are built over a period of time and our earliest scaffolding for the patterns come from our mother tongue (or the languages learnt in early childhood). Subsequent understanding depends on building and expanding on those patterns.
Independent of language as the conscious surface level mechanism, maybe - as in, they don't have to be in English, say. But independent of language altogether, including symbolic language encoded into brain structures, I wouldn't be so sure.
Language doesn't have to mean conscious internal monologue.
Agreed, but boy do I wish we had better words (ha!) for this.
Calling everything "language" even if someone internally has a more visual or tactile or some other kind of "internal grammar" really gives an unfortunate tilt to casual conversation.
For most people, in everyday discussion, "language" means words/text. I wish we had some term for "structured knowledge" that did not rely on the words/text analogy, since it can leave different-minded people feeling a bit sidelined.
It can still have a language form (manipulation of groups of symbolic structures, terms, and associations), but doesn't have to be English, or even at the conscious "internal monologue" level.
Well, it has to be able refer to things (it can't include the actual objects), not to mention handle abstractions and concepts.
An animal can do that with direct response/manipulation/pointing etc, humans must do it at a symbolic level to handle the world at the level we do.