True. But there are groups of people who have no interest in humans reconstructing the ancient past. Which is why they push these dogmas onto everyone by the force of the sword.
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Speech is a defining human characteristic. It’s doubtful in the extreme that mankind had managed to conceptualise number without having names for the numbers. What would silent, abstract speculation even consist in without language? This idea uses a Darwinian model of development, but what’s the actual evidence that language is a secondary, or more recent phenomenon than a-linguistic maths?
Which would require less conceptualization, drawing a line to represent 1 object or uttering a sound to represent 1 object? Either way both parties would need to agree what the symbol or sound meant. Until an infant learns to recognize and utter the sound for an object he or she has no other way to communicate their wants or needs except by crying with the parent guessing.
How would they agree what the sound or symbol meant without language? Meaning is a linguistic phenomenon. Number is mute without language to couch it in. This doesn’t get off the ground.
Yes linguistics is a human thing, all I’m saying is the phenomenon of numbers as symbols vs. an alphabet to express an idea requires less conceptual thought. Once we agree on number symbols we can than proceed to an alphabet.
Good luck doing that without language.
Yeah the origin of how languages came about is steeped in gobbledygook🤭.