In 2005, the work of Daniel Everett challenged a central dictate of conventional linguistics that all languages exhibit properties of ‘recursion’, which is fundamental the Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (Chomsky 1965), namely, that languages are hierarchical and clauses (or thoughts) are embedded within sentences (or thoughts) thereby avoiding simple constructions such as those spoken routinely by the Pirahã people of the upper Amazon basin: “John chased the cat. The cat chased the mouse. The mouse chased the cricket.” With recursion the text would appear as: “John chased the cat that chased the mouse that chased the cricket.” Interestingly, a Pirahã child raised in Sao Paulo would have no difficulty learning Portuguese, which is a recursive language much like English (Tehovnik, Hasanbegović, and Chen 2025).

In all modern languages recursion is a central feature (Chomsky 1965). But what about ancient languages? If one picks up a copy of the King James Bible (Old Testament) one notices that it has few examples of recursion (see Footnote 1). In 1611, The King James Old Testament, which is in English, was finalized by having it translated directly from Hebrew and Aramaic by scholars at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and the Parliament at Westminster. The Old Testament was transmitted by mouth starting 12,000 BCE and only later in 300 BCE was it completely written down (Finkelstein and Siberman 2002). It is noteworthy that the Pirahã language, as with the original Old Testament, had no written form and it too was transmitted by mouth (Everett 2005).

Accordingly, if ancient languages were largely non-recursive with no written form (as with the Pirahã language) then this would mean that Chomsky’s universal grammar is not a product of human evolution but instead much like mathematics and AI it may be an invention brought about vis-à-vis the establishment of written text several thousand years ago.

Footnote 1: ‘That’ is often used to reveal a recursive sentence structure; however, the examples using ‘that’ in the Old Testament are characteristically non-recursive:

“Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way.” (Judges 5:10)

“And it came to pass the same night, that the LORD said unto him.” (Judges 6:25)

“Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the LORD had said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father’s household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by night.” (Judges 6:27)

“And he said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise: and, behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do.” (Judges 7:17)

“And Gideon came to Jordan, and passed over, he, and the three hundred men that were with him, faint, yet pursuing him.” (Judges 8:4)

“And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called Abimelech.” (Judges 8:31)