The role of Language

It is of considerable importance to understand the degree in which an entity can have conscious experience without also having language. If there is a direct link between language and consciousness then we can make definite statements about consciousness in non-human organisms. Is there a relationship between the ability to deal with grammar and the ability to feel what it is like to experience something? On the surface the two seem as different as oil and water but at the same time oil and water are understood by the interplay of atoms and electric fields. Does consciousness require distinct machinery in the same way that the physicist most invoke distinct machinery to explain chemistry, gravity and radioactivity?