If we think by talking to ourselves does that mean we can only think about things that our language can describe. This would include our sentience and all science right back to the beginning of mankind. We can only describe our science through the units and measurements that we have made up over time building on what we had. Eg. We discover addition which then leads on multiplication. So, does our thinking and human achievements directly relate to our control over and development of language?
Would a rat develop sentience if we somehow gave it a more sophisticated language?
Has there been any research into this?

Topics: language, psychology, philosophy, sociology, human behavior