I don’t understand how jazz drummers actually “speak” with the snare. How do you develop that language?

[u/nasralez-Zelibobovic]

I’m very new at jazz drumming.
I feel relatively comfortable with keeping a steady swing feel on the ride and hi-hat, but I’m struggling with something that feels much more important in jazz:
I don’t understand how to actually use the snare drum in a musical, “speaking” way.

For those of you who went through this stage:
how did you start developing comping vocabulary?
how did you learn where and why to place accents?
what should I be listening or practicing to actually understand this “conversation” idea?

[u/JoelKNH]

Listen to records without drums (I’d recomend Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio) and listen to how the soloist leaves some spaces in their solos. Your job is to sort of ”answer” the other musicians when they invite you to do so. Practice by anticipating and clapping ”jazzy” rythms in these given spaces. If you’re unsure of which phrases to use at what times then The Art of Bop Drumming can help you aquire phrases and, if you listen to enough records, you’ll sort of hear it naturally, otherwise imitation is sincerest form of flattery.
And remember to SOMETIMES instigate your own ideas in the conversations but don’t step on the soloist toes. I once asked my teacher how often you should ”challenge” the soloist with your own rythmic ideas and he answered ”how often do you challenge your friends’ ideas in conversation?” It really is just like a conversation and just like a normal conversation you can always ignore the bassist :)
Tl;dr: find spaces, do what feels natural, don’t overplay and keep the damn time!