Anyone claiming "surely every language needs X" had better look at Riau Indonesian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riau#Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ri

Anyone claiming "surely every language needs X" had better look at Riau Indonesian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riau#Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riau#Language) first to check if that language has X. If it doesn't, then X is almost certainly not required for communication.