Consider a time when language just started to develop: hominids would have been grunting various sounds and start to attach meaning to them. Modern apes do that all the time. For a striking and well documented example, see vervet monkies's alarm calls for snakes, eagles and leopards.
We can speculate that at time, our early hominid would ask a question to his comrades by uttering something and could expect an answer (in a social group, "I scratch your back, you scratch my back" behaviours may be beneficial to the individual if the group members have the necessary memory to keep track of other members behaviours). Our hominid ancestor could have developed the habit to ask questions and to answer other's questions (e.g. "are there crocodiles in this river?"). One day, one of our hominid ancestor might have asked a question while nobody was there to respond, but since he himself heard his own question, it triggers in himself the urge to reply to it! And to its delight, he found out that he just answered his own question! Asking oneself question could arise a side effect of asking other questions. Speaking to oneself could have an evolutionary advantage if the connection between the different parts of the brain was not optimal. E.g. a first part of the brain might need a piece of information present in another part of the brain, not efficiently connected (yet) to said first part. By broadcasting its request in the environment and by relying on a pair of ears to pick it up, said first part could establish a virtual link between both badly connected parts of the brain.
This scenario strikes me as a good candidate for how "thinking" evolved!
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