For one, how would you know? It left no fossils, nor do we have any other kind of record from that time.

For another, the very question implies a teleological view of evolution, which is arguably wrong.

As for what 50% of people report (where did that number come from?), we have virtually zero intuitive insight into the inner workings of our minds in general, or of the way we process language. All the knowledge that has been obtained about how language works--linguistics--has been obtained by external observation of a black box. (FMRIs and the like provide a little insight inside that black box, but only at the most general level--and again, that's not intuition.)