Why do we talk to ourselves?

When stripped of its everyday familiarity, the virtually constant inner dialogue experienced by virtually everyone presents a mystery: why do we use language to communicate to ourselves. When examined from a design perspective in light of currently plausible cognitive neuroscience, language seems highly non-optimal as an internal communication medium. Other than its role in maintaining the privacy of thought, proposed functions for self-dialogue raise more questions than they answer. Therefore, it is appropriate to question the role played by the familiarity of self-dialogue in shaping our intuitions about consciousness.