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This is a very interesting question. Why did one group of languages develop where tones are meaningful sounds (phonemes), such as in Chinese and Thai, for instance, but other languages developed right nextdoor (Korean, Japanese, Khmer), in which tones are not meaningful? Why are the aspirated consonant sounds in South Asian languages (pir & phir, for example) considered distinguishing sounds, whereas they are not considered different sounds in European languages? Why does English, for example, distinguish between /v/ sound and /w/, but Urdu and other Indian languages do not, even though they are all of the Indo-European language family? Why do some languages use the word order subject-object-verb (Urdu) but others use subject-verb-object (English), and others use markers at the end of the word to give those meanings (German) and others have no particular word order or markers (Chinese, I think...)?
For me, myths such as the Tower of Babel don't explain it.
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