usually, we assume that a meat grinder does not "understand" meat, that a rice cooker does not "understand" food, and that a telephone or a CD player does not "understand" human language.

Wiktionary terms "understand" as (i) be aware of the meaning of something (so we've just reduced it to the meaning of awareness and meaning), or (ii) to impute meaning that is not explicitly stated.

To put it in more colorful terms, a blind person can understand the difference between green, yellow and brown bananas, but they usually cannot understand the visual aspect of color.

By the same rationale, a vector does not understand the word it describes any more than the telephone book understands the people listed in it or the city that they live in.