"And a third question arising from these is whether there is such a thing as "pure consciousness" without an object of which it is being aware." - Amos

Recently, I learned that language is learned in the womb. Not the actual words but the rhythms. Speech is just little bursts of air which we control with out tongues, throat, lips, etc and those little bursts of air are transmitted to the womb in waves of energy and arrive at the fetus via waves in the amniotic fluid. Therefore, regardless of what language is spoken in the home following birth, a child's first language is the language spoken by the mother while pregnant.

I'm not sure if this has any bearing on the subject under discussion but I do think that language and self are closely intertwined, if not one in the same. It is, at least, the way we communicate to others who we think we are. My guess is that consciousness occurs with that first breath but that the formation of language occurs in the womb.