[leto_ii]

> The idea of thinking independtly like that though seems unbearably slow to me

So, as a person who definitely has an inner monologue, I absolutely agree. It's not like I'm literally sounding out words in my mind all the time. The vast majority of things I do I do without explicit use of language.

I think my understanding (mostly coming from Chomsky and in disagreement when OP) is that language is a mechanism for thinking that is mostly not accessible through conscious introspection.

[RaftPeople]

> mostly coming from Chomsky and in disagreement when OP

Is Chomsky's idea that language is not necessarily the same as spoken language, it is an alternate brain mechanism that provides structure to thought as opposed to being the wild west of fluid/analog non-discrete/non-symbolic type of information processing?

[leto_ii]

The idea would be that language first evolved as a mechanism for thought and only later became used for communication. Spoken language would still be connected to the underlying mechanism though.