Comment by the_gipsy

Isn't the folk intuition that "words come after thoughts"?

I agree that a stroke cannot isolate language exactly, it's not an ideal approximation of "languagelessness". I think you will find this report interesting: https://nautil.us/what-my-stroke-taught-me-236544

There is no doubt that many marvelous works and concept can be produced entirely without language. Something as complex as driving a car can be done mostly without "thinking about it", without language, without the inner monologue going over all the decision our mind is making.

What we can't do without language, is making a complex plan over time and space, beyond something like "need to fetch hidden item behind the corner to unlock box right in front of me now". The question is how much exactly does language "augment" our intelligence. Is a baby, a human that has not yet learned language, really smarter than an octopus? Or a crow, remarkably smart but interestingly not a mammal, which indicated that intelligence doesn't have to be strongly tied to some evolutionary biological feature. A human stays as "dumb" as an animal if they don't learn language.

Re: your theory, if true, why? The theory implies (though correct me if I'm wrong and strawmanning), that there is another, hidden, way of encoding these extremely complex "information bundles" for lack of another word, in our brains. Why not use that for metacognition too, then?