Doesn’t it make sense to start with simple noises to represent the everyday things?
In: Other
There may be multiple reasons.
1. Some of the complexity you see in older languages was deliberately introduced to maintain their status as the language of aristocracy. I know that was the case with Sanskrit (very similar to Latin with 8 cases and singular, plural and “dual” forms). The masses often spoke a very simple version which had shorter more simple words.
2. Assimilation of new languages (invasion, migration etc…) often introduced new words foreign to both native populations. What was simple to one became complex for the other due to different speech patterns. These often became simplified as time went on as the languages met in the middle.
3. This is my own take so no clue if it is widely held: I think when languages were written down they quickly evolved a complex grammar like any system that “just works” in practice but is difficult to put down in rules when you define them. Then scribes started using that grammar to create complex words. Which maybe why in written literature you see words that no one uses in practice. E g. In old English poems people could just throw together two different words together to create a new word (e.g. whale-road for sea) for artistic effect but that doesn’t mean people were using that word in practice. As time goes on most of those words fell away due to disuse.
4. New complexity is always being introduced, it just doesn’t seem complex to us. We routinely use new complex words without issues because we have become familiar to them (e.g. decentralization, multiculturalism).
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