"Connecting your hands to?" she asks aloud.

"So, the way this would work if I were talking to anyone else, is that they would have memorized the associations between my hands moving in a particular way and a sound or a word. But there are lots of hand languages, they're only used by small groups of people, and each of the associations are different in different groups. Every movement I've made has lots of meanings assigned to it in different languages. So how do you know which one I'm using?"

"I have no idea which one you're using, I wouldn't even have been confident that there were several!"

"What if I switch halfway through a sentence - which I just did, to be clear -"

"I didn't even notice."

"Does it have to be a language that I actually learned from someone? Like, if I make up an entirely new sign .... and I say that it means, uh, 'floret', and then I use it and go "I like florets I think they're lovely I want to line the floor with florets", what do you see -"

"I see you signing 'floret'?"

"Okay, what if I do that but I don't tell you what meaning I have in mind for the new sign I invented -"

"I like elephants! I want to speed an elephant up and ride it around!"

"I don't know what an elephant is but apparently you can ride them!"

"Okay but are you - getting some amount of information other than the shape of my hands -"

"Well, I can say elephant aloud too, does that count?"

" - so it's - it's as if you're reading my mind -"

"No! No, I just know what you're saying."

"Right, but using information that isn't anywhere except in my head! - I'm not upset, I think it's fascinating."

"I just want to be really clear that I don't read minds."

"You just have a magic way of accessing information that isn't anywhere else, but only when someone's trying to symbolically communicate it to you - writing works, signing works, speaking works, does anything else?"

"...what else is there?"

" - well, I don't really know. You could have a language that worked by - touch, I suppose, or smell, or...balance, or temperature..."

"Maybe if I met someone who had one of those I could understand them too."

"If I invent one will you be able to understand me in it, you think?"

"I don't know if it works if you just make up the whole language, but maybe?"

"I could raise a baby speaking it," he says thoughtfully.

"I have no idea if that would help."

"Is everyone where you're from like this? What determines which language someone hears you in, if they know several?"

"Yes, everyone where I'm from is like this. I have no idea what you hear when I talk."