The Hidden World of Children's Made-Up Languages: How Gibberish Builds Brilliant Brains

"Flibber-dee gobkin with marzoo prelicks!"

If you've ever overheard your child speaking in seemingly nonsensical phrases with a sibling or friend, you've witnessed one of childhood's most fascinating and underappreciated developmental milestones: the creation of a secret language. These invented communication systems—ranging from simple word substitutions to elaborate languages with consistent grammar—represent far more than just playful gibberish. They're windows into the remarkable linguistic capabilities of the developing brain.

The Secret Language Society: More Common Than You Think

Parents might be surprised to learn that approximately 60% of children create some form of secret language during their development. While most are short-lived experiments, some evolve into sophisticated communication systems that persist for years among siblings or close friends.

Dr. Elena Rodriguez, a developmental linguist at University of California, notes: "What we once dismissed as simple play has revealed itself to be a complex cognitive activity that strengthens vital neural pathways. Children who invent languages are essentially exercising the brain's natural linguistic genius."

Unlike adult language learners who often struggle with grammar rules and vocabulary memorization, children's brains are uniquely equipped for language innovation. The same neural flexibility that allows them to effortlessly acquire their native tongue also enables them to create entirely new linguistic systems.

Types of Secret Languages: From Simple Codes to Complete Systems

Children's invented languages typically fall into several categories, each reflecting different developmental stages and purposes:

Cryptolects: The Code-Switchers

The simplest form involves modifying existing language through consistent rule application. The classic "Pig Latin" (moving the first sound to the end and adding "ay") is the most familiar example, but children create countless variations.

Eight-year-old twins Malik and Amir developed "Flip-Speak," where they reversed the order of syllables in multisyllabic words while keeping single-syllable words intact. "Brother" became "ther-bro" while "car" remained unchanged.

Autonomous Languages: The World Builders

More ambitious language inventors create completely novel vocabulary and grammatical structures. These autonomous languages often feature distinctive phonological patterns—sounds that appear repeatedly across different words.

A remarkable example comes from 7-year-old Sophia, who created "Loopish," a language with over 200 words, consistent verb conjugation patterns, and even idioms. When researchers analyzed Loopish, they discovered it borrowed phonological elements from the three languages Sophia had been exposed to—English, Spanish, and Korean—while creating entirely new grammatical structures.

Parasitic Languages: The Linguistic Remixers

Some child-invented languages attach themselves to existing language, adding consistent modifications. The well-documented twin language "Olimarao," created by two British girls in the 1990s, maintained English sentence structure but replaced approximately 40% of content words with invented terms.

Fascinatingly, research reveals that children typically maintain the grammatical structure of their native language while experimenting with vocabulary—suggesting an intuitive understanding of language hierarchy that linguists didn't formally identify until the 20th century.

The Cognitive Powerhouse Behind Playful Gibberish

When your child spends hours developing elaborate codes or nonsense words, they're engaging in sophisticated cognitive processes with far-reaching benefits:

Metalinguistic Awareness: Language About Language

Creating a secret language requires stepping outside normal language use to analyze how language itself functions. This metalinguistic awareness—thinking about language as an object of study rather than just using it—correlates strongly with reading comprehension, spelling proficiency, and even mathematical reasoning.

Recent research from Stanford University found that children who engaged in language invention activities scored 23% higher on tests measuring metalinguistic awareness compared to peers who didn't participate in such activities.

Executive Function Enhancement

Maintaining a secret language requires impressive cognitive control. Children must remember their invented rules, switch between language systems, and inhibit their default language responses—all core executive function skills that translate to academic success.

A longitudinal study tracking children from ages 5-12 found that those who engaged in sustained language invention showed measurable improvements in cognitive flexibility, working memory, and attention control compared to baseline measurements.

Social-Emotional Development

Secret languages often serve crucial emotional and social purposes. They create bonds between siblings or friends, establish group identity, and provide a sense of autonomy and privacy in a world where children have limited control.

Child psychologist Dr. Martin Fujimoto explains: "When children create a communication system that adults don't understand, they're carving out psychological space that belongs exclusively to them. This supports identity development and builds confidence in their creative abilities."

The Developmental Timeline of Language Invention

Children's language creation typically follows predictable patterns across age groups:

Ages 3-4: Proto-Secret Language

Young children begin with simple phonological modifications—adding the same sound to the end of words or reversing certain sounds. These experiments are typically spontaneous and short-lived.

At this stage, providing rhyming games, word play, and exposure to different languages creates fertile ground for linguistic creativity.

Ages 5-7: Rule-Based Modifications

Children now apply consistent transformations to existing language, creating more stable code languages. They delight in the puzzle-like aspects of encoding and decoding messages.

This is an excellent time to introduce simple ciphers, writing systems from different cultures, and games involving coded messages.

Ages 8-10: Systematic Language Development

Older children often develop more elaborate systems with consistent vocabulary, grammatical rules, and even writing systems. They may document their language in dictionaries or teaching materials.

Supporting this stage might involve introducing concepts from linguistics, exploring international auxiliary languages like Esperanto, or discussing how fantasy authors create languages for their fictional worlds.

Famous Invented Languages: From Playground to Phenomenon

Some childhood invented languages have been remarkably well-documented:

Poto and Cabengo

Perhaps the most famous case involves identical twins Grace and Virginia Kennedy, known publicly as "Poto and Cabengo." Initially thought to be communicating in an autonomous language, linguistic analysis revealed they had created a complex cryptolect based on English and German (heard from their grandmother), with consistent grammar modifications and novel vocabulary.

Elloway

Created by two sisters in the 1930s, Elloway included a writing system, number system, and over 1,000 words. The sisters maintained and developed the language for over a decade, eventually teaching it to selected friends.

The Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language

While not created by children as play, this fully functional sign language emerged spontaneously in a Bedouin village with high genetic deafness rates. Within a single generation, children in the community developed a complete sign language with complex grammatical features—demonstrating the innate language-creating capacity of young brains.

Nurturing Your Home Linguist: Supportive Approaches

If you discover your child developing a secret language, consider these approaches:

Express Genuine Interest Without Intrusion

Ask open-ended questions about their language, but respect their ownership of it. "That sounds fascinating—does your language have special words for things we don't have words for in English?" shows interest while acknowledging their expertise.

Provide Enriching Resources

Books about codes, ciphers, and writing systems from around the world can inspire more sophisticated language development. For older children, introducing concepts from linguistics can provide vocabulary for what they're intuitively discovering.

Document With Permission

If your child is comfortable sharing, consider helping them document their language through recordings, written samples, or even a dictionary. These artifacts often become treasured memories in later years.

Connect to Broader Learning

Help children see connections between their language invention and other areas of learning—mathematics (pattern recognition), anthropology (cultural communication systems), or literature (constructed languages in fantasy worlds).

When to Seek Professional Input

While language invention is typically a sign of normal development, in rare cases it may warrant professional consultation:

• If a child exclusively uses their invented language and resists communicating in the family language

• If language invention is accompanied by social withdrawal or difficulty connecting with peers

• If there are other developmental concerns alongside the language creation

These situations are uncommon but worth monitoring with the guidance of a speech-language pathologist or developmental specialist.

Digital Age Language Invention: New Frontiers

Today's children have unprecedented access to language creation tools and communities. Online language construction communities, linguistics resources, and even specialized software for developing constructed languages have transformed what was once an isolated activity into a potential collaborative hobby.

Apps like "Conlang Toolkit" and websites dedicated to "conlanging" (constructed language creation) allow children to explore language creation in more systematic ways than previous generations. However, the spontaneous, intuitive language play that emerges naturally between siblings or friends remains the most developmentally valuable form.

Beyond Childhood: The Lifelong Impact

The cognitive benefits of childhood language invention extend far beyond the years when children actively engage in it. Adults who created secret languages as children often report that the experience influenced their:

• Facility with foreign language learning

• Creative problem-solving abilities

• Interest in linguistics, coding, or cryptography

• Appreciation for cultural and communication differences

Famous language inventors from childhood include J.R.R. Tolkien, whose elaborate Middle-earth languages began as childhood experiments, and Christine Kenneally, a prominent linguistics journalist who traces her fascination with language to the code she developed with her cousin.

Embracing the Babble: Final Thoughts

The next time you overhear your children speaking in seemingly nonsensical phrases, resist the urge to dismiss it as mere silliness. Those strange sounds and made-up words represent the remarkable linguistic machinery of the human brain at work—a cognitive muscle-building exercise disguised as play.

In a world increasingly focused on standardized communication, these private linguistic playgrounds provide spaces for creativity, connection, and cognitive development that structured activities often can't match. Whether your child's invented language lasts for an afternoon or evolves into a years-long project, it represents one of childhood's most sophisticated intellectual achievements.

So when you hear "Zabble-dee flip nooker doon?" from the backseat, remember: that's not just gibberish—it's genius in the making.