Children’s Language: Cracking the Cryptophasia

There is much debate as to whether twins develop their own language that only they can understand (known as Cryptophasia) or that they just distort the language of their environment by babbling to each other.

 

Research by David Crystal (The English Language) suggests that children play with language by saying words back to front or inserting extra vowels. For example, Back Slang is the term for saying words backwards. However, soldiers, shopkeepers and thieves are also renowned for using this method; meaning it is hard to label Back Slang to just children, let alone twins. Another language feature is Eggy-Peggy speech which is where an extra syllable is added to the word. This is shown in: pugat thagat begook dowgun (put that book down), where "u"and "g" are added.  The most commonly known word play feature is Pig Latin where the first consonants are put at the end of the word and "ay" or "e" is added. For example, Utpay atthay ookbay ownday (put that book down). 

 

It is often the case that one twin is more dominant than the other and they will be the main influence in a conversation between siblings. Young children are shown to repeat syllables and their intonation patterns are exaggerated. Even before the early age of two, they start creating words as their vocabulary is developing. 40% of twins develop some form of private speech from this age. A study on 33 month year old twins carried out by Crystal (Encyclopedia of Language) shows children responding to features of pronunciation:

 

A: Zaeki su

B: (Laughing) Zaeki su Zaeki (both laugh) ae:

 

 A case in the 1970s shows twin girls, Poto and Cabengo, who developed a language unknown to others until the age of eight. Their real names were Grace and Virginia Kennedy but Poto and Cabengo were the names they coined for each other. They spoke very quickly and the words had a short rhythm. Linguistic analysis showed their language was a mixture of English and German which was most likely due to their grandmother who only spoke German and often looked after the twins. Kratze proposed that the girls had little contact with anybody outside of their family causing them to not pick up English properly. 

 

Twins are more likely to form a Crytophasia as they spend so much time together and are developing at the same rate. However, most turn out to be speech impediments according to scientists researching Crytophasia kids. Instead, the children were mispronouncing words or making references to things they associated with that word. For example, Jon Lackman believed that if their word for pasta was Oliga, the child was likely to have first tried pasta at Olive Garden. 

 

On the other hand, some twins do develop a Crytophasia with a different structure from any established languages. They don't use a typical sentence structure; instead the child will mix up the combinations of subject, verb and object by uttering what they believe to be the most important word first. Evidence of Joos's Five Clocks can be seen in a Cryptophasia such as casual and intimate register which is used between families and uses impliciture through facial expressions or body language.  It is a simple way of communicating and speculation from linguist, Bernard Comrie, asks: can twin language give us an insight into first language?

 

Kerrie Carter