BellaOnline Forums Family Twins Do your twins use "Twin-Talk?"

I believe that twins have a special form of communication they use only with each other. Has anyone observed this with twins? Tell us about it!

I'm not a twin, but as toddlers, my younger sister and I had our own language. I'd have to translate for her. So I can certainly see how twins would do that!

Julie

My mum doesn't recall my identical twin and I using twin talk as such, but we did (and still do) often know what the other is thinking so sometimes when people are listening to a conversation it will seem like we have missed some sentences in the middle and they'll struggle to follow the conversation. Also our brains make the same very bizarre connections so a discussion about driving can switch to a conversation about, say, DVD recorders without any pauses or 'catching up' time. We also both have slight synaesthesia and our synaesthesia is the same. The funniest thing from our baby years is that rather than try and copy adults (as kids do and that is how they learn to walk) we were quite happy just copying each other, and so rather than doing the usual crawling then walking thing we developed this weird way of getting around where we sat with our legs straight out in front of us alternately advancing each leg forward, apparently we could get around reeeeeeeeally fast this way. We didn't even try to walk till we were 20 months. Mum wasn't worried at all because physically everything was fine with us and academically we were very advanced for our age.

Yes, this is exactly the thing. Twins have someone to copy who approves of their choices and understands them, so that is how their language and games can develop which no one else understands.

My twins did not have a totally separate language, but they would make up words for the people and things they liked most, like close relatives, Disney characters, animals, and, as I recall, Christmas lights! They knew what the real name or word was, but they chose to use their own instead, and we didn't discourage it. The funny thing was, they would use these alternate names so much, that my husband and I would start using them, too, and then forget when we were speaking to others that they wouldn't know what we were talking about...LOL.

--Maria