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@brownie: I'm an audiologist! his language explosion could definitely be from being able to hear clearly for the first time (or at least the first time in a while). An ear infection, even a minor one, can make it so it sounds like he is hearing underwater/muffled. Once he gets a clear signal to hear, it's much easier for him to reproduce those sounds accurately! If you are concerned about his hearing, I would recommend calling around to some ENTs to see if the audiologists in their offices test children. Not all are equipped to do so. Good luck!

When my son has an ear infection, they work super quick, like less than an hour to "take the edge off" his pain, so I am not surprised at all!

That's great on the speech!

I'm a speech language pathologist and as part of my schooling, I was trained to do basic hearing screenings and to read audiograms. If ENTs or audiologists are not readily accessible, are you able to get in for a speech evaluation?

I obviously can't diagnose your LO but it certainly sounds like there could be fluid in his inner ear and thus impacting his ability to hear speech sounds properly (the underwater, muffled hearing the audiologist bee mentioned). It could be a coincidence, but with your update, it's much more likely the antibiotics helped clear some of the fluid or relieved some of the inner ear pressure.

I'd make the trek to the ENT. He's still young enough that he will likely "catch up" quickly if the hearing issues are dealt with in a timely manner. My little brother had tubes placed at 14 months for the first time and my mom noticed a difference in his babbling within a few days. He went from grunting to producing more human speech sounds.