Obviously, many animals gain knowledge without a language, so in theory humans could also gain knowledge without a language. Presumably, human infants gain knowledge without explicit use of language, though language is such a useful tool that one presumes it plays a role in most instances of knowledge acquisition for older humans (who have learned linguistic communication). However, the link between knowledge acquisition and language acquisition is perhaps made most obvious by the realization that "language" is really just a kind of "knowledge": one acquires/learns/knows the forms and rules of language, as well how to apply it in different situations.

Language is a symbolic code for representing knowledge  - - - words are thinking tools, and humans seem to be great at using symbols.  Spoken and written language has a grammar and syntax as does any computer code.  

That being said, non-humans have a sophisticated body language and others communicate via chemicals.  Sea mammals may have a more complicated spoken language, and any being that forms complex groups has some sort of language - - - the more complex the group, the more sophisticated the language.  And in these cases, knowledge is recorded in memory and passed down  via stories.

The big difference is that humans have a written languages and are able to record knowledge in scratches on stone and clay, ink on paper, and magnetic patterns on media and so on.  In fact, language - - - English, Chinese, . . .  is viewed as one form of a knowledge representation is the AI field.

So acquiring or learning a language is simply picking up a new encoding mechanism where we can record and represent knowledge.  So even the brain of a worm or the responses of a single celled being does adapt and learn; and that information is encoded.  That encoding and internal representation is the language.

Polanyi said: we can know more tan we call tell [1962]. Nonaka [1995] revisited this concept: the "tacit knowledge". Nowadays, the firm's [and nations] competitive advantage flows from its tacit knowledge. 

Thanks Carl and Jerald. It is pretty good aspects of knowledge acquisition in deeper sense.

My attempt is to investigate whether we can build up a model for interpretation of information (data-Information-knowledge) in a person following the same structure a child acquire language.

Jagath - -  that's interesting because we learn any language, by encoding information in our neural pathways.  Linguists postulate that we have language wired into our brains.  They state that postulate because they have found all grammars have the same underlying structure among all languages.  

What you might want to do is to explore the different ways and structures that artificial neural nets are programmed to acquire language and review the the research connected with that.

Thanks Jerald,

Your suggestion show another path.

  Although there are common structures grammatically for languages (Noam Chomsky etc.) there chaos with utility of some parts of speech. Mind Mapping , Concept Mapping etc. are kinds of knowledge drafts that can also be studied.

Extremely complex question. Yes, they are interrelated. I suggest you ignore Chomskian frameworks except as a historical curiosity; they were important but not compatible w/ modern cognitive science and cognitive linguistics, nor with child language research. Attached are two brief reviews that give an overview of *some* (not all) of the issues that your question raises. For more in-depth treatment, you might want to get an excellent textbook -- now a few years old but still good -- by Eve Clark on Language Development.

Are there similarities between language acquisition and knowledge acquisition? It seems both are interrelated. Of course the two are interrelated but language acquisition has to begin earlier than knowledge acquisition and the second acquisition (knowledge acquisition) depends largely on the first (language acquisition). Language acquisition has to reach communicative level before knowledge acquisition can take place.For the second acquisition to take place the first acquisition does not have to be perfect, and the second acquisition strengthens as the fist acquisition improves. 

Instigating conversation! Thank you,..!

YES! Knowledge is COMPLETELY language dependent! This explains, for example, why deaf people cannot build knowledge while not being exposed to their mediating "natural" language (Sign language).

See socio-interactionist Theory (mainly Vigovsky and Bakhtin): Language is "pretty more" than "just" its formal representation...! (This informal remark is mine and not theirs...)

Please, do NOT ignore Chomsky's anyting! His work is an historical reference (and not curiosity) Additionally, his political position is consistent with all his high...! (A passionate researcher;-)

Laura, Chomsky is very lucky to have such passionate defenders. I would also gently suggest that you read some of the critics of his theory. Back in the day, he did a lot to dismiss and denigrate his early critics, then slowly incorporated their points into revisions of his theory (sometimes without giving them credit). Later versions of his theory gave up most of his original points, subtly. But you don't have to believe me; there's a big body of work by others more expert than me explaining why his early theories don't explain a whole lot of linguistic phenomena. And his views on development are straight up ignorant.

    Won't comment on his political positions; I'm a scientist and I have political opinions like everyone else; I'm sure I agree w/ him about a lot of things. His self-confidence in holding forth about any topic is truly astounding, I'll give him that.

Thank you, Gedeon!

I must read them fore sure!

Though being a scientist too, I cannot avoid to be unhappy for the indicated Chomsky's character's fragilities, since I, personally, am hard to accept people significant inconsistencies between their theory (supposed ideals, political position, and so on) and their practice (the individual's behaviour in social - micro and macro life).

P.S. I am a LatinAmerican (Uruguaian and Brazilian) researcher...

Yes there certainly is and Plato said so, too.

Knowledge underlies language acquisition, especially the content component of language (see Bloom & Lahey, 1978; Lahey, 1988).  Children's early utterances represent what they know about the world. 

Yes,  Jagath, Knowledge adquisition is not possible without language.

By the way, it is because of that Deaf communities are so socially excluded, since they are excluded twice: one time by the common social exclusion and the otehr by their lack of knowledge adquisition during early childhood (At list in Brazil, more than 95% of Deaf children have non-deaf parents...)

Dear

Yes Harriet. I believe language terms (to represent concepts) are created arbitrarily to represent new concepts found by developing new knowledge. So the knowledge begins before the language. However new knowledge cannot be transferred to others without the language. There special cases that some concepts cannot be translated in to another language. It is interested to study how the knowledge and the language are interrelated. Language has various components and we can learn the language step by step. Can we acquire knowledge step by step? We can create language acquisition model but can we create knowledge acquisition model?

Both language acquisition and knowledge acquisition require the exposure to sources. We need to expose to the relevant communities to learn the language while we need to expose to the information resources (personnel or material) to acquire the knowledge. Of course I have to read Bloom & Lahey.

I agree with Laura. Knowledge here I mean the advanced knowledge that human beings have. Not the knowledge that animals are using with their natural sensors to survive.

Laura, it should be researched to find out whether deaf communities are less knowledgeable than normal communities. Here the mechanisms to make deaf communities to expose to information resources are limited.