averbal en · ADJ
Etymology
From a- + verbal.
Meanings
-
(not-comparable) Not verbal; without words and speech.
It is not yet clear how these birds were able to “count” and to form averbal concepts of numbers without the help of characterizing words.
1978, Marvin D. Loflin, James Silverberg, Discourse and Inference in Cognitive Anthropology, page 266: