Language is what has enabled mankind to become aware of the structure of nature. This awareness is called consciousness. Our species, Homo sapiens, did not become fully conscious all at once, but in incremental stages, which are known as dimensions. Modern languages reflect mankind’s evolution to the awareness of each of FIVE dimensions, such that mankind currently lives in a world of linguistic awareness of five dimensions of space. The existence of each of these dimensions of space can be comprehended by the mind only in relation to a simultaneous awareness of the existence of a corresponding dimension of time. In other words, space and time are understood by the mind in terms of five dimensions of space-time.
As our species evolved to the awareness of each succeeding dimension of nature, language evolved to represent that awareness.
As our species evolved to the awareness of succeeding dimensions of space-time in the homeland of Homo sapiens in Africa, groups migrated out of Africa and around the world. Each group took with it a language that expressed the current dimensions of awareness. Whereas the languages of all such groups continued to evolve as their speakers became aware of succeeding dimensions, the grammar of each language remained oriented in a fundamental and primary way to the number of dimensions of which the original speakers was aware at the very moment that they left Africa.
The dimension of consciousness that could be expressed in the language that each group of people took with them when they left Africa became their primary dimension of orientation to the world. All modern societies are now aware of all five dimensions. As each language evolved into its modern form, awareness of each subsequent dimension was incorporated into every aspect of the grammar in a manner that was consistent with the primary dimension of orientation, rather than being integrated into the grammar to form a new primary dimension of orientation, as continued to occur with the languages that remained in the homeland in Africa.
All aspects of the grammar of language can be analyzed in the context of this primary dimension of orientation.
The ancestors of the modern speakers of Chinese left Africa when Homo sapiens first became sapient; mankind was conscious, but was only aware of the first dimension. The Chinese language then had to superimpose its subsequently evolved understanding of each succeeding dimension onto the first. In the homeland of Homo sapiens in Africa, all five dimensions of awareness became integrated into a single pattern of nature. The ancestors of the speakers of English left Africa when mankind was aware of four dimensions, and these four were integrated into a single pattern, although the fifth dimension, of which they became aware after they left Africa, was not integrated.
Because none of the dimensions are integrated in Chinese, and because each dimension is therefore distinct from each of the others, Chinese provides the best evidence that enables understanding of each of the stages in the evolution of consciousness in mankind. We can gain tremendous insights into the nature of the English language, the nature of the reality of speakers of English, by comparison of its similarities and differences with the nature of the Chinese language.
As was stated previously, speakers of English are driven by the grammar of their language to accept it as natural that all subdivisions of their awareness of space and time are subdivisions into 4, whereas speakers of Chinese are driven by the grammar of their language to accept it as natural that all subdivisions of their awareness of space and time are subdivisions into 5.
Before looking at the model of nature that is the Dao, let us consider a model in use by English speakers in order to create a context for comparison.