Confusing Fact about the Races/Spoken

[MistakeNot]

I read somewhere here in the Lore Forum that the races from each shard have independently evolved.

Should I understand it that the races that we can play (Hyur, Lalafell, Elezen etc.) didn't exist yet pre-Sundering or that they only existed after the Sundering? Wouldn't that mean that Dwarves, Galdjent etc. from the First coincidentally emerged to parallel the likes of the Lalafell, Roegadyn etc. from the Source?

Or did I happen to have a misunderstanding and all the races already existed pre-Sundering and then the split (Source + 13 Shards) happened?

There was quite a bit of time between the original Final Days and the Sundering.
New life had started to appear after the sacrifices used to summon Zodiark.
Some wanted to sacrifice much of both this new life and remaining Ancients to have Zodiark restore the world as it was. Others disagreed and summoned Hydaelyn, after which the Sundering happened.

So either the various races we know of were part of this new life that had started to grow, or the races were created as part of the Sundering.

That they would have evolved post-Sundering and ended up so similar between different shards is too implausible to be taken seriously.

[symbiote129]

That they would have evolved post-Sundering and ended up so similar between different shards is too implausible to be taken seriously.

This is what I somehow got from the interview too as well, hence this thread question.
I thought it was quite logical in my head that the playable races/some beast tribes happened to exist before the split (Sundering) because of the First's races' similarity with the Source's races. Until the story devs come out of the left field with this info, totally blindsided me. That the First's races similar appearance to the Source's races is because of evolution/coincidence was like giving me metaphorical brain concussion.