I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that we had our very own secret language growing up. Just for the three of us. This ended abruptly when our 2 year older brother simply stated that we should stop talking nonsense. Or so the family story goes. Now I wonder, is there any truth to this phenomena referred to as twin talk, idioglossia or cryptophasia?

Let’s look at the facts

I have to admit that from a personal stand I would love for the story to be true. Not our brother’s sabotage, but the fact that we had our own language. The idea is pretty fascinating!

A quick search on Wikipedia comes up with this:

Cryptophasia is a peculiar phenomenon of a language developed by identical and fraternal twins that only the two children could understand. The word has its roots from crypto meaning secret and phasia meaning speech disorder. Most linguists associate cryptophasia with idioglossia, which is literally the same, but cryptophasia also includes mirrored actions like twin-walk and identical mannerisms. Little is known about cryptophasia.

While sources claim that twins and children from multiple births develop this ability perhaps because of more interpersonal communication between themselves than with the parents, there is inadequate scientific proof to verify these claims.

Idioglossia refers to an idiosyncratic language, one invented and spoken by only one or very few people. Most often, idioglossia refers to the “private languages” of young children, especially twins, the latter which is more specifically known as cryptophasia, and commonly referred to as twin talk or twin speech.

Children who are exposed to multiple languages from birth are also inclined to create idioglossias, but these languages usually disappear at a relatively early age, giving way to use of one or more of the languages introduced.

Let’s look at the theories

1) Secret language

Triplets are incredible babies with the mental capacity, creativity and cooperation skills to develop their own language – a separate language from the world, only for them. Or maybe this is just my take.. This would indeed be the coolest explanation.

2) Poor language

I guess this theory goes the other way. Howstuffworks.com claims that It’s actually a matter of delayed or poor speech development in either one twin or both. Here’s a possible scenario: Twin A has difficulty articulating certain sounds and thereby certain words. Although twin B is better able to articulate these sounds and words, he chooses to mimic or repeat the manner in which Twin A speaks. So, the two continue to talk this way, understanding what the other is saying but meanwhile it sounds like gibberish or some concocted language to you.

The conclusion

I have to admit that common sense as well as research point towards the second theory. Yet, as howstuffworks.com also point out: So, is there really no secret language between twins? While research does indicate that the phenomenon most people think of as a secret twin language isn’t what it seems, that doesn’t mean there aren’t twins and other siblings out there making up their own private words or codes.