 Al-Fārābī describes how a language develops within a community. In [Letters] (114, 115) 134.16–135.14 he pictures a community whose members have concepts (ma‘qūlāt, literally “intellected things”, or “intelligibles” in Scholastic terminology) that allow them to pick out identifiable objects in the external world, either individually or as kinds of thing. He refers to these concepts drawn from perception of the external world as “primary concepts”. These people have beliefs, and they are able to reason about the world, to deliberate about their actions, and to communicate by pointing. But as yet these people have no language.