I know I’ve dreamed of having my own language. It’s the perfect sort of code, this untraceable, private dialect. But most of the mechanisms that drive successful language are obscure, magical things to me. It’s easy enough to babble, or to create codes based on existing languages (Pig Latin, anyone?), the creation of real, organic language is a complex and daunting matter, something that takes massive spans of time, and countless human interactions, inputs. They are, perhaps, the most beautiful constructions that mankind is capable of, and the far-reaching diversity is obvious. Humans have created thousands of complex languages, all within complex and conscious societies, so the hope for a private language is small, correct? Not exactly. All languages had to start somewhere, didn’t they?
Good news for all prospective language-developers is that it’s a recognized phenomenon called idioglossia. Mostly seen among children—particularly twins—an idioglossia is a developed language unique to one or two people, with varying connection to real language. It’s the most basic form of language, like what a morpheme is to a sentence. They can be incredibly simple, but I think they’re beautiful, all the same. A disclaimer: I’m going to take a wide stance on defining what an idioglossia is, because I think it has bigger implications than “twin-speak” or nonsense blabbering.
The important concept is that all language is the development of an idioglossia. I just love humble beginnings.
Poto and Cabegno, identical twins and speakers of an idioglossia created through their close development (their names were actually Grace and Virginia), would say phrases like, “Nis, Poto?” instead of, “This, Toto?” Or, “La moa, Poto?” for, “Here more, Poto?” We sometimes refer to this blabbering as “gobbledygook.” Most of the time, these languages form and dissipate within a small phase in early childhood, as the speakers migrate toward their given language, whether it be English, Spanish, or Swahili.
It’s a sad moment, I think, one that’s caused not by necessity, but rather social pressure. We know that children are perfectly capable of growing up in multi-lingual homes. They might speak an amalgam of the two for a while, but each language gets sorted in time. There’s no reason a child’s idioglossia couldn’t continue to develop as they grow into adolescence, or their teenage years.
While idioglossia doesn’t have much to do with the development and acceptance of new words into an already-heavy lexicon, it’s sort of an interesting parallel. Take the acronym “LOL.” If you’ve been on the Internet at all in the last 15 years, you’ve seen it. You’ve probably heard someone sound out each letter of it—“el-oh-el”—in actual conversation. It has just been accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary—the supervisor and heavenly guide of all things English—as a legitimate word. Now, I’m not going to editorialize on that decision, or the use of the acronym. I just want to trace its history.
No one can say where the acronym first appeared, save that it spread from the likes of Usenet and IRC, two text-based communication protocols. Whatever the original use was, it occurred between a select group of people. The inventor hit “Enter,” and after a little explanation, those present were privy to its meaning. It became one part of a growing lexicon, an idioglossia in itself. These original speakers started to use other acronyms, or variations on LOL, which expanded the language. “LOL” spread at an incredible pace, and it 2011—some two decades later—it was dedicated as “legitimate” word.
This gives hope to any idioglossia.
We see certain forms of developed idioglossia every day, although they’re generally referred to as jargon. Like “LOL,” they have since been integrated out of their original idioglossia, having been accepted as part of the natural language. Legalese is a common example—just look at any user agreement you accept when installing software to your computer, or signing over your credit history to a card issuer. In fiction (1984), “Newspeak” is a frightening, albeit unlikely, scenario of an idioglossia absorbing meaning and intention of its linguistic successor as it burrows deeper, until it changes roles with English altogether. One can imagine the phrases and new words (doubleplusungood, meaning very bad) coming directly from Big Brother, and filtering down to the masses, until any other English construction is forgotten, reduce to the realm of idioglossia itself.
Either of these examples show that certain mannerisms of speaking or writing can eventually be accepted and integrated into the normal English language. It’s not a simple process, but it can be done. Of course, this also shows how any language can devolve back into idioglossia—and then obscurity—as it is wiped out my nature’s many destructions.
The creation of idioglossia isn’t confined to infants, either. I’ve recently stumbled upon the British comedian Stanley Unwin, who was famous for Unwinese. His language is a corruption of English words with an identical prosody, meaning that the meaning is lost, but he speaks with all the same intonation, emphasis, and pace. His delivery is disorienting at best, because listeners feel as though they should understand what he’s saying. I’d assume it’s like listening to a famous classical piece transcribed up by a fifth, or a fourth, or however it is music theory works again. It’s charming and it’s nauseating at the same time, which makes it completely brilliant.
The words and phrases in Unwinese are ridiculous as they are abstractly understandable. Wikipedia has a long list of “translations” from Unwinese to English, and in many cases, Unwin used a basic formula of synonyms, the spitting-up and re-compounding of words, and odd pairings to create his language. “Thriftymost on your banky balancer,” for example, means something is “a very good value.” Not particularly recognizable on its own, but when paired with its definition, it does make a good deal of sense. It’s not particularly difficult to say nonsensical things, but Unwinese has the unique ability to sound like a completely disconnected idioglossia while maintaining some semblance of the old meaning. It was a whole new language, but not all that different from the connection between English and German, for example, which shares sounds, words, and meanings, not to mention similar grammatical conventions.
But there’s enougat aboat me obdi-section plus wordsmithys.
What I find beautiful about language is that they all began as an idioglossia. They thrived and developed under a frail shelter. At any moment, they could have been displaced by another burgeoning language, but they forged ahead. It makes me happy, almost, for the LOLs and OMGs of the world. They have withstood a constant charge of criticism (not entirely undeserved) and survived. Many more have died, Unwinese included.
When Stanley died, he was buried alongside his wife, and their headstone read: “Reunitey in the heavenly-bode – Deep Joy.” Perhaps, at least to them, the idioglossia was able to live on forever.
I know that it’s easy to be annoyed by those who use the “Internet idioglossia.” They’re vapid, tedious, and dense at times. They often butcher the remainder of the English language, which makes the rest of us cringe at just about anything they say. But natural English, minus the Internet-generated slang, has just as many ignorant, troublesome speakers and writers. Does that mean we hate the language as a whole? No. I, for one, love it all the more—even the OEDs latest additions. And with that: The ticky-tocky is scole to say, “Deep joy, and weldome home-place.”