How Did Humans Think Before We Had Words?

“How did humans think about things before they had language to think with?”
That’s a brilliant question from Vedika, aged 11, from Mumbai, Maharashtra.

When we try to imagine our own thoughts, most of us feel that words are always swirling around inside our minds. It feels like we think in the language we speak—Hindi, Bengali, English, Tamil, maybe even a mix of them all! But here’s the surprise: language is not the same as thought.

Just pause for a moment and listen to your own thoughts—really listen. You’ll probably hear a jumble of half-finished sentences, vague phrases, maybe a song stuck in your head, or flashes of images. It’s messy. It’s fast. And it’s often wordless.

So what comes first—thought or language? Think!

Let’s take a quick example:
Here’s a classic joke from an Indian uncle at a wedding: “I sold my broom because it was just sweeping around without purpose.”
Now, to ‘get’ the joke, you have to understand that “sweeping around” could mean wasting time idly, and that a broom literally sweeps. So calling a broom purposeless for sweeping is silly—that’s the joke.

But did you notice? You probably laughed or groaned before you consciously explained the joke to yourself. The realisation hit you first—the words came later.

This tells us something important: we think first, and translate those thoughts into language only if we need to explain them.

Think like a gamer

Imagine playing a high-speed video game like PUBG or Free Fire. You might mutter things like “Gotcha!” or “Nooo!”—but if I asked you to describe all your moves in perfect Hindi or English, you’d probably lose the game. That’s because the planning, the decisions, and the strategies are happening in your brain long before any words are formed.

Scientists have studied people with aphasia—a condition where people lose their ability to use or understand language, usually after a stroke. Surprisingly, many of them can still solve puzzles, play chess, or do complex maths. Their thoughts are very much alive—even if they can’t express them in words.

You can try this trick at home:
Pick a simple word—like “chai” or “jal”—and repeat it over and over in your mind. While you’re doing that, try to plan tomorrow’s school project or imagine a scene from your favourite movie. You’ll find that even though your inner voice is busy, your mind can still picture things, make decisions, and solve problems.

That’s because your brain doesn’t need words to think—it just uses them to share.

A species that shares its mind

This is where the real magic of language comes in. It’s not just a tool for thinking—it’s a bridge between minds.

Before we had language, humans probably communicated through gestures, grunts, drawings, and facial expressions. These helped pass on ideas and emotions, but only in simple ways.

The invention of structured language—spoken and written—was like unlocking a superpower. It allowed us to teach, learn, remember, and imagine together. With language, we could pass on knowledge from generation to generation. That’s how we built Vedantic philosophy, zero in mathematics, Ayurveda, Ramayana, and the Indian Constitution. That’s how we created space rockets, railway networks, and Bollywood scripts.

Language makes our thoughts clearer, our emotions deeper, and our ideas more powerful. But it’s not the start of thought—it’s the expression of it.

So to answer Vedika’s question:
Yes, humans could think long before they had words. We imagined, felt, planned, and dreamed in silence. But the moment we found language, we gained the ability to share our silent minds—and that’s what made us uniquely human.