Language as a Platform Environment for Scientific and Technological Progress

This study examines language as a platform environment for scientific and technological progress (STP), extending the theoretical framework of Platform Thinking (Fedosieiev 2026) to its first historical proto-form. Language is conceptualised as the first proto-platform of humanity — a structure that preceded digital technologies yet already exhibited the defining properties of a platform: governing access to resources, generating network effects, establishing rules of participation, and producing structural asymmetry. Through historical analysis spanning eleven periods – from the Neolithic era to the emerging knowledge platform ecosystem (horizon 2025+) – a structural pattern is identified: the acceleration of STP consistently correlates with transitions of language to new levels of platform organisation. Language is analysed across three interconnected levels: cognitive, institutional, and infrastructural. A system of nine operational indicators is proposed for assessing the impact of language on STP. Five successive stages of language platformisation in science are identified: cognitive, institutional, digital, cognitive-algorithmic, and a prospective ecosystemic stage. The study demonstrates that linguistic compatibility determines the degree of inclusion of scientific actors in global knowledge production, while linguistic isolation leads to platform marginalisation. In the context of digital transformation, structural asymmetry shifts from native speakers of the dominant lingua franca to the owners of algorithmic infrastructure. The concluding section traces the transition from language as infrastructure to language as the architecture of a self-organising knowledge ecosystem – the next platform transition, the contours of which are already observable.