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 TwinLast 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 until the age of about eight. ''Poto and Cabengo'' is also the name of a documentary film about the girls made by

Jean-Pierre Gorin Jean-Pierre Gorin (born 17 April 1943) is a French filmmaker and professor, best known for his work with ''Nouvelle Vague'' luminary Jean-Luc Godard, during what is often referred to as Godard's "radical" period. Jean-Pierre Gorin was a student ...

and released in 1980. 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 language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...

in their early years. Poto and Cabengo were the names they called each other.

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. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it ...

. 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

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

Early circumstances

Both parents were employed (although later characterized by ''

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'' 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

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

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, 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 idiosyncratic language invented and spoken by only one person or only two people. Most often, ''idioglossia'' refers to the "private languages" of young chi ...

Language

The twins' language was characterized by an extremely fast tempo and a staccato rhythm, traits the girls transferred to their spoken

following speech therapy. Linguistic analysis revealed that their language was a mixture of English and

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(their mother and grandmother were

born) with some

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

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 psychiatrists 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 ''

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'' 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 quickly 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 is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in se ...

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

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.)"Ginny and Gracie Go to School",
TIME
' December 10, 1979.

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 languages Identical twin females Living people People from Columbus, Georgia