[bayarearefugee]

There is also a rather thorny chicken and egg problem.

If language is required for thinking and conscious experience how did we manage to develop language in the first place.

[triceratops]

Human level thinking and conscious experience aren't required for language. Dogs understand spoken words and gestures. They're also pretty good at making themselves understood through noises and body language. Humans have better hardware than dogs for making noises.

I could see language development bootstrapping abstract thinking over generations in humans.