Belly Jeans and Canpakes

Language is an interesting thing. It has been fun watching as Ava learns language and communication. She speaks very well for a 2 year old, but occasionally mixes up parts of words. The two in the title are my personal favorites. I have thought lately about how subjective language is. Even though we use the same words, each person must have a different idea or picture or connotation with each word as it is spoken that the listener can never truly know or understand. When I say "peach" it conjures up images of the rows and rows of peach trees on my grandparents farm where I spent a week each summer as a young girl. I remember the time I picked and ate a dozen near-ripe peaches in one day because I was fascinated with the act of picking a fruit from the tree. I remember how sick I felt afterwards! When Cody says "peach" he might think of the peach tree in his yard growing up. He may think about how he and his brother sold the peaches from that tree in a homemade "peach stand." He might, but I won't ever really know what images he has associated with the word "peach", and that is just one word! Each sentence is full of words and personal associations. So I wonder what images Ava already has associated with the words she speaks and how different they must be than an adult's perspective.