system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Linguistics question: if a person lived in isolation, would they develop their own language?

My wife and I were having a discussion about this recently. She has a linguistics degree, and the topic came up of a person living by themselves with no prior language (hypothetically speaking, of course). She said there'd be no reason for this person to develop any language.  I thought that they would come up with words and names for things, if for no other reason than personal reference (e.g., cave drawings, maps, notations, etc).

So how much language, if any, would a person develop if they lived with no human interaction? What *would* develop? Thanks everyone.
gpt
You might be interested to read about feral children.  They're not very common, but they generally share similar symptoms, among which is a lack of language.  It's also not easy to teach them language skills after they're removed from their situation.