Can you imagine a mind without language? More specifically, can you imagine your mind without language? Can you think, plan, or relate to other people if you lack words to help structure your experiences? Many great thinkers have drawn a strong connection between language and the mind. Oscar Wilde called language "the parent, and not the child, of thought"; Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world"; and Bertrand Russell stated that the role of language is "to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it."

The purpose of language is to reveal the contents of our minds, says Julie Sedivy. We are social animals and language is what springs us from our isolated selves and connects us with others. Sedivy has taught linguistics and psychology at Brown University and the University of Calgary. She specializes in psycholinguistics, the psychology of language, notably the psychological pressures that give birth to language and comprehension.

Several years ago, my father died as he had done most things throughout his life: without preparation and without consulting anyone. He simply went to bed one night, yielded his brain to a monstrous blood clot, and was found the next morning lying amidst the sheets like his own stone monument. It was hard for me not to take my father's abrupt exit as a rebuke. For years, he'd been begging me to visit him in the Czech Republic, where I'd been born and where he'd gone back to live in 1992. Now my dad was shrugging at me from beyond-- "You see, you've run out of time." His death underscored another loss, albeit a far more subtle one: that of my native tongue.