The only thing universal to all languages

are symbols corresponding to things and actions, nouns and verbs utilizing consonants and vowels, whether explicit or implicit, in some prescribed order based on internal rules of logic. The only thing universal to all thought, human or not, linguistic or not, would seem to be things and actions ordered by chronology, and therefore tentative causality, Pavlovian stimulus-response-reward mechanisms. The act of perception itself must proceed through many phases from inception through its subsequent development, depending on the complexity of the organism being discussed, analogous to the capabilities of a nerve ending itself: pain, pressure, hot, and cold at the local level. In complex multi-celled organisms, this quickly expands into sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, a whole world of perception. When this swirl becomes categorized into actions and things, we cross over into thought, replete with chronology and causality. Once we abstract that thought with symbols, we have language. So mankind proceeds, from infant to sage, from past to present, from perception to thought to language.

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