This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.
Related to the same idea as before — if we can talk about what is not happening in the here and now, the next step would be to be able to communicate things that don’t exist at all. We explain abstract or mythical concepts using concrete language. We use what does exist, what we do experience, to describe something else.
Language went from describing what was happening here, now, to describing what happened somewhere else, which required us to form and retain an impression of that thing. Those impressions could then be used to create stories and, yes, fictions.
