For Doug if he’s free, or others.
I’m a natural systems scientist who combined physics and design to study the formation and behaviors of growth systerms, “in the wild.” That would include language. Research led me to see it’s highly useful form having emerged from from explorers pointing and speaking sounds refering to increasingly conceptual references to thing and interests 40 to 20 thousand years ago. Today, in English, that pattern seems clearly visible in both the simple words, directly refering to things that are still common place, and also the syllables which mostly have strong influence on combination of consistemt primative meanings that compose modern complex words and phrases, but still, mostly identifying natural systems, characteristics, and behaviors.
Would you agree that might offer a way to explain how language became be so very useful ?
Frankly, no.
I happen to be a scientist too, and as such I’m used to accepting theories supported by solid facts, repeatable experiments and convincing math.
Mere words uttered with conviction, misspelled and totally off-topic have the same effect and elicit the same reactions as the Jehovah’s witnesses knocking at my door while I’m trying to write something sensible.
Ah, yes, I would often react that way to views that seem a little mysterious. However, the only place where we find authentic data on where language came from is in the words that survived from whatever process it was that formed each cultural worldview at the foundaton of languages as they emerged. I’m taking as clear evidence how our these broad understandings of life and nature are evident in advanced Latin, Greek and other ancient languages were when they seemed to emerge fully formed when written down.
Isn’t that evidence that there was a fairly long prior process of creating those broad foundations of each of the numerous meaningful general languages that preceded their being written?