In Tom Wolfe’s “The Kingdom of Speech”, he discusses Chomsky’s work in the field of linguistics. Chomsky is basically regarded as the Einstein of linguistics, and much of his work stands the test of time, sort of.
For example, his theory that all human language on earth has a common thread, in that it uses recursion (I’m not smart enough to fully explain what recursion means, but it’s basically parenthetical references built into the language). For years, this theory was proven correctly, from the most obscure language in remote New Guinea to the major familiar world languages.
Then one missionary found a very remote group of South American natives who spoke a language that absolutely did not include recursion. This guy was excoriated for daring to challenge Chomsky. He wasn’t being a gadfly, he was just reporting what he observed. So the elite linguists went down there to prove him wrong. Surely he must be mistaken. Well guess what, they found zero recursion in this unique language. Chomsky was fit to be tied, and smeared this guy in academic circles.
I don’t think too highly of old Noam after reading this. Wolfe is a pretty fair author who researches everything to the hilt. Interesting deconstruction of a linguist’s theory, and the scientific method biting the dust in the service of Chomsky’s massive ego.
There is no ONE common thread to all of the languages. There are distinct branches to the language tree. Proto IndoEuropean being only one. We now have super computers that may find things yet undiscovered but there are after all only so many sounds the tongue can make so there will be some incidental overlap.