Twin Talk

Is it Real?

I was thinking about an incident that happened when my children were small.   They were about 18 months old.  Three Speed asked me a question.  I had no idea what he said.  I asked Tall Guy, “What did he say?”  Tall Guy repeated it verbatim.  I still had NO idea what Three Speed wanted.

This is a phenomenon commonly called “twin talk”.  The technical term is “cryptophasia”.  Some people call it “idioglossia”.  It is defined as “the phenomenon is actually attributable to young twins mimicking each other's attempts at language, often incorrectly.”

I also remember the boys sitting in their seats in a circle when they were about 6 months old.  They appeared to be having some sort of conversation.  One would say something, the other two would giggle, then another would say something, etc.

I was doing some research in order to write this.  Almost every article that I found on the internet said that this was a manifestation of speech delay.  Having a conversation at 6 months of age?  I felt sooo left out!

I think that, if you haven’t actually experienced this, you have no idea what’s going on.  My children seemed to be communicating.  As they learned English, they still had words or phrases of their own language.  They would converse in it between themselves.  I would ask them to “Please speak grown-up!”  As they got older, they got better at it.  Eventually there were only a few words left. 

Of course, since they have grown up together, my boys understand each other better than anyone else.  They look at each other a certain way, or say one or two words.  That’s all it takes.  But they were communicating with each other before they were even born.  So, I guess it’s OK.