Cryptophasia

This is part three of a series on twins written by Herald intern Miranda Madden.

When twins grow up, they usually grow up within the same proximity. They spend most, if not all, of their time together, and they learn and grow as a pair.

As a result, with absorbing all this new information together, they begin to communicate with each other in a language that is unknown to surrounding people.

Cryptophasia is a phenomenon in which a language is created by twins and understood only by them. This phenomenon is also known as “twin speak” or “twin language.” The language usually sounds like mumbling and could possibly involve hand gestures.

There are experts who believe this phenomenon does not actually exist, that these toddlers are just actually mispronouncing their native language. Regardless of if it’s mispronouncing words or creating new ones, cryptophasia does occur and there are many cases of it.

A major case of this is the story of Poto and Cabengo. Born in Georgia in 1970 as Grace and Virginia, respectively, these two twin sisters created and used their own language until around eight years old.

The girls’ parents worked long hours, so they were mostly watched by their grandmother who would rarely interact with them. Their parents spoke English, while their grandmother spoke German, so growing up, they only had a basic understanding of English and not much knowledge of German either.

The twins’ father considered them developmentally challenged, as a doctor had once speculated they might be, and did not send them to school.

Because of their isolation from the outside world, as young girls, they created their own language, which was a mix of German and English. They called each other Poto and Cabengo.

Usually, cryptophasia goes away around age three to five, but the girls’ lasted until they were eight years old. In fact, their language seemed to be more complex than normal.

According to a U.S. TIME article from 1979, “their exchanges were thought to represent the most developed form of idioglossia ever recorded in medical history.”

The sisters did eventually go to therapy, and their language naturally dissipated. But the fact that two young girls created a language by mixing the English and German they were exposed to, however unintelligible, is remarkable.