context: Most educated Indians are trilingual (the provincial language - there are more than 20 of these, with a few hundred distinct dialects- , Hindi (the national language), and English. I can read and write French and German but I don't really think in these.
I find that the "voice in my head" speaks different languages at different points in time. While programming I use mostly English. I find that sometimes when stuck on some programming problem, trying to explain/talk about it in another language often "unsticks" it. No idea why, really.
Hindi is not THE national language. It is "A" national language.
Hindi is just the language used for the transacting business of the Central government, for which English is a constitutionally and legally acceptable alternative.
Coming back to the topic, I think in English most of the time, just because a majority of my waking hours are spent thinking about tech and programming, for which English is a natural fit.
Note: I'm trilingual (actually more like 3 + 0.5 + 0.1 + 0.1 + ..., the fractions being other south indian languages).
I associate certain activities with certain languages. Food -> Chinese. Programming -> English.
At least for me, the language that people usually speak to me in when I do that task or learn that task is usually what sets the language I think in. I have somewhat similar experiences with music (certain music makes me want to code), and even handedness (I yo-yo left-handed because thats how I learnt it)
An amusing side effect of that is that though my native language is English, after 7 years of living in Germany, if I've been drinking I have trouble forcing myself to switch into English. I catch myself even speaking German to friends who speak English better than German. Since I'm so used to "social activities are in German" I can't shake it.
That's interesting -- I never thought of it in terms of context, but I had similar issues when I returned to the states after 7 years in Germany -- I would go into shops and order things in German, because my "talk to shop people in German" bit didn't turn off right away. Some confused/amusing looks when you say "Ich moechte gern ein Hamburger, bitte" in a restaurant; and it takes a few months to switch back.
I think is is a perfect example to explain how our brain stores memories and information (images, ideas, concepts, new things, etc). I'm not bilingual (I only speak English) but from reading everyone's comments on this page a clear pattern emerged:
To your brain, language is just another piece of information, normally used for expressing ideas, concepts, or new things you have learned. If you learn about a new thing while you're living in a country speaking the native language, your brain stores it together with the associated language, which you will later use to express that thing, even if you're expressing it after you've somewhat forgotten the language it was learned in.
This very clearly explains why most programmers will "think" in English when they're programming -- the majority of documentation and code is written in English and when they learn programming concepts, the concepts are stored in the brain along with the English language used to express it.
Our brain is constantly looking for relationships. I notice whenever I play a game on the computer, I instantly feel hungry -- even if I just ate. My brain associates "eating" with the activity "gaming" and tells my body it's hungry. In the exact same way, the brain stores the associated language with the new concept or thing when it is being learned. Taming and controlling this functionality of the human brain is very powerful and I think it's the basis of all habits and addiction. (I say "I think" because I have absolutely no formal education on this topic.)
This entire subject fascinates me as I have always wondered why learning a new language seemed so difficult to me. I often catch myself reading aloud in my head and quickly realize how much it's slowing me down. When I switch to "absorbing" the words instead of repeating them in my head, my reading speed instantly increases two-fold.
I'm going to write a post on my blog compiling and summarizing all the ideas and discussion on this page, so feel free to look for it on raamdev.com if you're interested.
I find that the "voice in my head" speaks different languages at different points in time. While programming I use mostly English. I find that sometimes when stuck on some programming problem, trying to explain/talk about it in another language often "unsticks" it. No idea why, really.