Not talking

I would look into an autism evaluation

My brother’s son is same age and has same story. Boys usually start talking late anyway but they took him to a speech therapist specialising in kids and they said nothing to worry about as he followed all instructions and interacted well.
My 2,5yo daughter started early but I noticed when she is with dad she makes more noises rather than words.
And I do encourage her responding in proper words so when she nods I’d say “you should say yes”. She also doesn’t respond to questions if her answer is a No, she’d just be silent so I keep telling her to respond yes or no and that it’s ok to say no.
Just hints of encouraging them to be more expressive. I feel like love for books really helped mine to learn more words.

Some kids just start later than others, give her time.

With nursery, they won’t really do anything about this until she’s 2.5 ( that’s how it is at my kids nursery anyway, unsure if that’s the same for everyone )
My 2 year old doesn’t speak but she also doesn’t point and do all those things your daughter does ( she has suspected autism ), we know she has autism though.

I’d ask the nursery for their opinion and if they can see anything else such as ( asd ) this is what I did with mine and they agree she also has traits , so that’s definitely a good place to start.

My son is also speech delayed ( not autistic ) and he could understand instructions, etc but it took him a long time to say more words ( he’s 3 now ) he had speech & language and they said he’s absolutely fine, just a bit slower than most children his age ! Xx

What I done to get my son talking more is, I kept asking questions, repeating a lot of stuff to him! ( I feel like repeating words was the best one )
Flash cards and one day he could just say more! He still doesn’t talk like children his age but he is saying so much now!

You should have an assessment by a speech pathologist. My son understood everything and followed instructions essentially communicating non verbally with us as he had limited words. He was not quite 2yrs and the assessment showed a severe speech delay. He was a Gestalt Language Learner. We simply changed the way we talked to him and he did speech therapy then before we knew it he was picking up words followed by sentences. Early intervention makes a huge difference.

My son was the same and was referred for speech therapy at his 2.5 year review, and then miraculously started speaking better 3 weeks later. He's 3 and 2 months now and can hold a full conversation 😊 he still mispronounces a few things but that's normal apparently. We got offered speech therapy in December but ended up turning it down as we didn't feel it was necessary.

I would get an evaluation on her doesnt mean anything is wrong

Sometimes they just take a little longer to engage in conversation! Doesn’t mean anything is automatically wrong. My little sister didn’t want to speak until she was three — she was taken to some speech pathologists but ultimately the consensus was that she understood everything and was simply taking her time. She’s 11 now and is a talkative, intelligent, kind and amazing kid! Everyone’s on their own timeline, comparison can sometimes make us worry, but if you feel their progress is otherwise not a cause for concern, just encourage them where you can! They’ll come around :) Now we can’t get her to stop chatting! Haha

Keep modelling language speech delay can be for various reasons. Son didn’t start talking till 2.5 x

I’m a speech language pathologist and would definitely recommend getting him in for an assessment! There can be several different reasons why a child is having difficulty acquiring words (or saying them clearly enough to be understood by familiar adults) which a licensed SLP can help identify and implement specific strategies for and early intervention is always recommended. I’m happy to send you some handouts with general early language strategies I give to the families I work with if that would be a helpful starting point! Just send me your email in a private message and I can pass those along ❤️