LL-L "Language varieties" 2011.04.03 (03) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 03 April 2011 - Volume 03
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From: Sandy Fleming <fleemin at live.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2011.04.01 (02) [EN]

> From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>

> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2011.03.31 (01) [EN]



> I've heard that lots of twins develop their own "twinnish", but very few
maintain it much past infancy. Odd really, you'd think they's find it useful
to have a "secret language" in later life.



A friend of mine has six year old twins and I often ask her what they're
saying. She often says she doesn't really understand them as it's a mixture
of English and twinspeak.

I think losing twinspeak is the same as losing any other language, it's a
question of motivation. Secrecy isn't all that hard to come by when you need
it, once you grow up a bit and have more control over your conversational
situations; so as the need for the language is lost, the language itself is
lost.

Adults generally seem to me to arrange secrecy by just dropping keywords,
such as in "buffyspeak" ("You know that thing, well, if you do, you know,
with that other thing then that'll sort out what you said before."), or
"gossip" ("Did you know she..." "And did she...?" "Ah!" "And that was..."
"As I said.").

Of course if you learn a sign language then you just have to wait for
somebody to turn their back and you can say what you want. And generally do
:)

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/



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