I think that great programming is not all that dissimilar to great art. Once you start thinking in concepts of programming it makes you a better person...as does learning a foreign language, as does learning math, as does learning how to read.
The fact is that if you have not developed language, you simply don't have access to most of human experience, and if you don't have access to experience, then you're not going to be able to think properly.
Language is the light of the mind
I don't think all thinking is a kind of rational structure. But I don't think it is correct to identify the rational-nonrational dichotomy with the linguistic-nonlinguistic dichotomy.
We think in language. We think in words. Language is the landscape of thought.
That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted.
And from the first declension of the flesh I learnt man's tongue, to twist the shapes of thoughts Into the stony idiom of the brain.
Words are the only arteries of thought our poor human body possesses.
In the speech sound wave, one word runs into the next seamlessly; there are no little silences between spoken words the way there are white spaces between written words. We simply hallucinate word boundaries when we reach the end of a stretch of sound that matches some entry in our mental dictionary.
You need language for thought, and you need language to anticipate death. There is no abstract thought without language and no anticipation. I think the anticipation of death without language would be impossible.
The more you speak more languages, the more you understand about yourself. It's like being blind. You aren't less of a person, but you're missing out on wonderful things.
Language is so inherent to humanity, so necessary for even basic thinking, that stories and poetry are available to anyone who can process language.
