According to linguistic anthropologists Homo sapiens developed a capacity for language between 100,000 and 30,000 years ago. Opinions will vary as to how the capacity developed but it seems likely that it was the result of an ongoing evolutionary process using natural selection to enhance the species chances of survival through improved inter-species communication and collaboration when dealing with the challenges of a potentially hostile environment.
Grunts and gestures became gradually more nuanced and specific, and refined to the point that they were reliably and consistently linked to the content of shared experiences and so form the basis for a unique form of communication that we now refer to as language.
Most importantly, the introduction of language enabled our species to create an abstract version of the world, and what Schopenhauer has referred to as “The World as Idea”. As a result, the natural world as encountered by our sensory experiences of it would now no longer just be “there” – as would be the case for any other living creature that is immersed in it – but also as a conceptual model for discussion and analysis by means of linguistic symbols that stand for some aspect of it, and which together constitute the world as it exists in our thoughts and understanding.
But as much as language allows us to analyze that conceptual world in whatever shared framework of understanding we bring to the discussion, e.g., cultural, scientific, metaphysical, philosophical, l at the same time we are very much limited by the fact that the natural world is clearly so much more than what we have been able to capture of it by having a vocabulary to describe it in as much detail as we are able to bring to the fore.
And for any description we have of the world – as complete we would like it to be – it would be a matter of trying to read between the lines what it is, exactly, that lies behind the idea of it, i.e., what is the intent of the natural world, as well as what role we are supposed to play in this cosmic event and why.