Our highly developed and highly discriminating abilities to think about situations that we are not observing are developments of powers that we share with other animals. But, at the same time, one must not make the mistake of supposing that language is merely a “code” that we use to transcribe thoughts we could perfectly well have without the “code”. This is a mistake, not only because the simplest thought is altered (e.g., rendered far more determinate) by being expressed in language but because language alters the range of experiences we can have. But the fact remains that our power of imagining, remembering, expecting what is not the case here and now is a part of our nature.
— Putnam 1999, 48