Language in general is a folksonomy.

People use a word that others understand (that stands out from the background noise of other words) and the more people that understand that word to mean that, the more effective the word gets for that use, and the harder it gets to change.

Random variations, based on emergent schelling points, that then get accentuated and strengthened and turn into something durable and real.

An emergent evolutionary process, swarms of people attempting to communicate leading to a flood fill of possibility, a coherent, branching edifice of meaning.