Poto and Cabengo (names given, respectively, by Grace and Virginia Kennedy to themselves) are American

identical twin Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two ...

s who used an invented language ( Cryptophasia) until the age of about eight. The girls were apparently of normal intelligence. They developed their own communication as they had little exposure to

spoken language A spoken language is a form of communication produced through articulate sounds or, in some cases, through manual gestures, as opposed to written language. Oral or vocal languages are those produced using the vocal tract, whereas sign languages ar ...

in their early years. Poto and Cabengo were the names they called each other. ''Poto and Cabengo'' is also the name of a documentary film about the girls made by Jean-Pierre Gorin and released in 1980.

Birth

Grace and Virginia Kennedy were born in 1970 in

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee ...

. Their birth was normal, and they were able to lift their heads and make eye contact with their parents within hours after birth, but both soon suffered apparent seizures. Their father maintained that a surgeon told him the girls might experience

developmental disabilities Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, espe ...

. Apparently misunderstanding speculation for

diagnosis Diagnosis (: diagnoses) is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in a lot of different academic discipline, disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " ...

, the girls' parents ceased to pay more attention to them than necessary.

Early circumstances

Both parents were employed (although later characterized by '' The San Diego Tribune'' as living on "food stamps and welfare") and spent many hours away from home. The girls were left in the care of a grandmother who met their physical needs but did not play or interact with them. The grandmother spoke only German, while the parents spoke English. They had no contact with other children, seldom played outdoors, and were not sent to school. Their father later stated in interviews that he realized the girls had invented a language of their own, but, since their use of English remained extremely rudimentary, he had decided that they were, as the doctor suggested, developmentally challenged and that it would do no good to send them to school. When he lost his job, he told a caseworker at the unemployment office about his family; the caseworker advised him to put the girls in

speech therapy Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

. At the Children's Hospital of San Diego, in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, speech therapists Ann Koeneke and Alexa Kratze discovered that Virginia and Grace had invented a complex

idioglossia An idioglossia (from the Ancient Greek , 'own, personal, distinct' and , 'tongue') is an idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic language invented and spoken by only one or two people. Most often, ''idioglossia'' refers to the "private languages" of young c ...

Language

The twins' language was characterized by an extremely fast tempo and a

staccato Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of Articulation (music), musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and ...

rhythm, traits the girls transferred to their spoken English following speech therapy. Linguistic analysis revealed that their language was a mixture of English and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

(their mother and grandmother were

born) with some

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

s and several idiosyncratic grammatical features. The story of the "twins who made their own language" made the national newspapers in 1978 and was included in an edition of the '' People's Almanac''. Many speech and hearing experts and

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

s offered speculation as to why, in contrast to most idioglossic twins, the girls had failed to pick up English. Alexa Kratze pointed out that the girls had had very little contact with anyone outside their family and that contact within the family had been minimal at best, factors that contributed to the girls'

developmental disability Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, espe ...

. Once it was established that the girls could be educated, their father apparently forbade them to speak their personal language. He was quoted in ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine as saying: "They don't want to be associated as dummies. You live in a society, you got to speak the language." Asked if they remembered their language, the girls confirmed that they did, but their father gently chided them for "lying." Despite being mainstreamed and placed in separate classes, the girls remained affected by their family's emotional neglect. A follow-up as they approached the age of 30 revealed that Virginia worked on an

assembly line An assembly line, often called ''progressive assembly'', is a manufacturing process where the unfinished product moves in a direct line from workstation to workstation, with parts added in sequence until the final product is completed. By mechan ...

in a supervised job training center, while Grace mopped floors at the fast-food restaurant

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

.The Learning Channel
"Twin stories"
retrieved 2007-03-07.

Sample speech extract

:"''Pinit, putahtraletungay.''" (Finish, potato salad hungry.) ::"''Nis, Poto?''" (This, Poto?) :"''Liba Cabingoat, it''." (Dear Cabengo, eat.) ::"''Ia moa, Poto?''" (Here more, Poto?) :"''Ya.''" (Yeah.)

References

External links

*
Poto And Cabengo: In The 1970s Grace and Virginia Kennedy Were Bigger Than The Loch Ness Monster
{{Authority control 1970 births 1980 films American identical twins Constructed language creators Identical twin females Living people People from Columbus, Georgia American people of German descent