Human languages are known to have grown and changed considerably over the course of history, often reflecting technological, cultural, and societal shifts. Studying the evolution of languages can thus offer valuable insight into how human societies and cultures have transformed over time.
It would be nice to know what those were.
I had to dig quite a bit into the paper to find it:
Frankly that’s poor sampling — 18/22 of the languages are Indo-European and/or spoken mostly in Europe.