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From Andrew Radford. (2004). English Syntax: An Introduction. p.4.:

From this point on, there is a rapid expansion in their grammatical development, until by the age of around 30 months they have typically acquired most of the inflections and core grammatical constructions used in English, and are able to produce adult-like sentences such as Where’s Mummy gone? What’s Daddy doing? Can we go to the zoo, Daddy? etc. (though occasional morphological and syntactic errors persist until the age of four years or so – e.g. We goed there with Daddy, What we can do? etc.).

Could it be rewritten as 'until the age of around 30 months when....'?

"until" is often followed by a specific point in time, but here the time is modified by "by". Does "by" imply "at"?

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    This is a dreadful passage full of bad grammar and incorrect punctuation. Don't try to learn English from this.
    – Astralbee
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 7:40
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    Doesn't seem so bad to me, though it's rather a rambling sentence. The sense is "...until they have acquired most of the inflections... (which, typically, has happened by the age of 30 months)".
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 9:06
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    The passage is fine. by when used with a time-expression can mean "not later than". If children typically learn something "by the age of 24 months", they typically learn it "not later than 24 months" after they're born. Compare "Arrive by 3PM or you won't find a seat."
    – TimR on some device
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 16:05
  • The prepositional phrase headed by by is a parenthetical remark and could be set off with some punctuation or parentheses. Compare "The balloon gets bigger and bigger as it is filled with air, until (by the time it has expanded to ten times its original size) it bursts."
    – TimR on some device
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 16:13
  • The parenthetical remark could be relocated: From this point on, there is a rapid expansion in their grammatical development, until they have typically acquired (by the age of around 30 months) most of the inflections and core grammatical constructions used in English, and are able to produce adult-like sentences such as Where’s Mummy gone?"
    – TimR on some device
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 16:17

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It's a little worrying that a book about syntax should contain such convoluted English.

The cause of your particular concern is poor, or maybe even incorrect, punctuation. If we move the second comma after "until", it is clear that "by the age of around 30 months" is a parenthetical phrase. Once that's done, it is easy to see that "until" is a conjunction that links the subordinate clause "they have typically...".

From this point on, there is a rapid expansion in their grammatical development until, by the age of around 30 months, they have typically acquired most of the inflections and core grammatical constructions used in English...

The sentence could also be made clearer as you suggested, but it would be much clearer to split this mega-sentence into several shorter sentences.

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by the age of around 30 months

establishes a limit of around 30 months that you can then use in a comparison.

It's an extremely common usage. Other examples:

They are fully integrated by Year 3.
By the time it takes me to run one mile, he will have run 10. You have to get there by 5:00 to get a seat.

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