"I think so but haven't systematically tested it."

"Want to?"

"Sure."

Then they can try having him repeat what he hears when she says a wide range of things!

She does seem to get back everything the way she originally said it. "It's possible context is helping."

"Yeah maybe. Say words to me and I'll write them down and then read them back to you in a random order?"

"Okay."

Then they can try that.

She does not get the exact same words back. Sometimes she even gets a different number of words than she thinks she said.

"That's so weird!!!"

Giggle.

"Everyone is like that, where you're from?"

"Yes, presumably if two of us did this we'd get the same words."

He shakes his head incredulously.

"What?"

"It's just such an odd way for something to work."

"It seems normal to me!"

"I guess it would!"

"Starting out not being able to talk or read or anything must be so strange."

"I mean we don't start out not able to talk, not really? There's a thing before there's us but it's not us."

"Oh, is that how it works? I was an adult when I started so I don't know."

"Yeah. Babies have personalities sometimes but it doesn't tell you much of anything about the personality the person will have and they're not, themselves, people. It's once you learn to talk that you have, like, the ability to form long-term memories, and a consistent identity, and the ability to accumulate debts or pay them or be affected by them."

"Surely an essential component of personhood."

"If babies formed memories then I guess I'd be suspicious but it does seem to all run together, the point where you start having person sorts of attributes."

"For your species, anyway."