Word: idioglossia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Linguistic progress with the "idioglossia" twins...
...sisters called each other Poto and Cabengo, and sometimes Madame and Milady. For a while they were thought to be retarded. But at the same time they seemed to be speaking an original language. At the very least their exchanges were thought to represent the most developed form of idioglossia ever recorded in medical history...
...Idioglossia is a phenomenon, badly documented at best, in which two individuals, often twins, develop a unique and private language with highly original vocabulary and syntax. It is commonly confused with a subcategory, "twin speech," a private collection of distorted words and idioms used by 40% of twins because they feel lonely or playful or both. Twins usually give it up at age three. But Gracie and Ginny were discovered at six, still unable to speak English. They had an apparent vocabulary of hundreds of exotic words stuck together in Rube Goldberg sentence structures and salted with strange half-English...
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