[realpatriot71]

But it's clearly not a physical area of the brain, since many stroke victims do recover the ability to speak.

Actually, it is a physical area - Broca's and Wernikie's areas; left temporal lobe for most folks. The amount of recovery after a stroke is inversely poprotional to the length of time that neurons went without oxygen

[angkor]

Actually, it is a physical area

Generally speaking that's true, e.g, language happens within the brain.

But the processes and mechanisms of language are complicated, and there is no single neurological study which locates all linguistic processes within any specific section of the human brain.

The best that has been posited is that various functions within the brain contribute to the processes of perception, syntax, motor control, and memory, all of which constitute language as a whole.