It has been proven that monkeys and some other animals can communicate with humans using words. I have therefore hypothesised that all animals think in words. However, instead of symbols or sounds they may see or hear their own equivalents, but the concept is still the same. e.g. A domestic cat can have a picture of a litter box in place of the word toilet which humans would see as the word toilet spelled out. This brings me to a sub - hypothesis that words and grammar don't form the way you think, in fact they are a mirror image of the way your brain works. Any objections?

Rob,

You may want to try Steven Pinker's 'The Language Instinct'.

Regards,

Blacknad.

I wonder how I could prove my hypothesis...

Illiterate Medieval serfs could recognize heraldry - sometimes their lives depended on it. Head Start can get slum bunnies to echo "I want my rights!" after a few years of intensive training, practice, and free feeding (like training pigeons in a Skinner box). Language is more than semiotics. You speak a language when you can create something new within it.

Penny Patterson and Coco the gorilla (actual name: Hanabi-Ko; grandiloquent propagandistic spew) can converse in sign language. The gorilla made some headlines for telling Penny about a nasty toothache. Coco hasn't written a trashy novel, drawn images, or created music. Cracking a nut with a rock is not the same thing as building a doorway as an arch,

http://www.pitt.edu/~medart/menuglossary/arch.htm

When the gorilla makes puns and apolgizes for them, that's animal use of language.