Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Have any of your kiddos done this before?

Dd 9 (HG) has created her own language... She calls it Meganese. She has lists and lists of words and meanings, and has also made phrases and sayings. She says she's going to teach the language to her friends... I'm not sure how that will go over! Pig latin, maybe, but I'm not so sure about her friends learning Meganese!

This seems like a very "gifted" thing to do, but I'm a little concerned about her obsession with it. She was speaking Meganese at breakfast this morning. I made her promise that she would not make up any bad words or mean words in Meganese. She said, "Oh Mom, of course not!"

DD is a very language oriented kid- reads at a 10th grade level. I guess she's trying to investigate more complexities of words. It's a little puzzling to me.

Has anyone else experienced this with your child? It just seems like an unusual thing for a nine year old to do...
Perhaps we should look for a foreign language class for her.

If you search through the old threads on hear you will find that it's fairly common.

Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzette_Haden_Elgin

Also books that talk about Greek and Latin roots in words.

Yum!
Grinity

my kids haven't, but I've heard of it. if it was bothersome, I guess you could try teaching her a second language...

My kids are obsessed with the pig latin mutation "Ferb Latin" right now, hahaha!

DD6 has done this for years, where she makes a word up, and tells everyone else how to use it. But she usually discards them pretty quickly, so she hasn't taken that next step of developing it into a whole language.

Yes, DD has done this to some extent, too.

Ds8 and his aunt, who lives with us, have a strange language - I'm pretty sure it has a name, but they tend to keep it to them selves. She is in her late 50's, (as is dh - I'm a decade behind LOL), and ds spends alot of time with her on weekends, they keep each other out of trouble I think it started when she pretended to be an alien, who had landed here and knew NOTHING. Ds had to explain anything and everything to her, from the simplest stuff. It was a way for her to find out how much he knew on a certain subject (he's a great one for claiming he knows nothing) - but when he has to explain stuff to the alien, it's amazing what he DOES know. They communicate in a made up language at times, though I don't know if there are real words in there or just strange sounds that mean nothing to them.

We all have become fluent in Connerian (pronounced canary-an) as it is spoken in ConnorWorld. He now has a new universe "Dimension D" that also speaks Connerian. I just figured it was one of those things!

2giftgirls! Mine are totally obsessed with FerbLatin! lol..My 6 year old seems to have a problem with her mouth not moving as fast as her brain would like it, so I think these talking excersises are great for her...she's been trying tongue twisters too! This is actually the same kid who, when she was a todler made up all kinds of words! She still does...She uses words to describe things. like blobbery...I think she is going to have a great vocabulary because she inserts her own words for vocab words she hasn't learned. She is just waiting to learn more words to plunk into her sentences. I'm sure all her reading will get her there!

Well, my husband asked DD if she would be interested in learning a foreign language...

She said no, she likes her language because it is all her own and nobody else knows what she is saying

Meanwhile, she spent about an hour last night writing sentences with her "words." If only her homework was in Meganese...

In 11 years of pediatric practice, I've seen it once, in toddler-age twins.

Just goes to show how different the HG population is from the rest of the world.

FWIW, I think that's REALLY smart!

Is it something you routinely ask about, though, doclori? I don't think it would occur to me to mention it (yes, DS did this too) unless directly asked, and I had the impression from general (if population biased!) mother chat that it wasn't limited to HG+ kids.

I had also heard of it among twins. I figure it's going to just be one of those things... Kind of like the rock obsession from second grade, or the worm rescue campaign from third grade... I found more rocks in my dryer than clothes. And she spent her recess time collecting worms from the pavement and "saving" them from the boys in her class. That almost got her into some trouble. Her spy campaign from earlier this year was interesting too. She was training some of the boys to be apprentice spies and work for her. The other little girls don't quite know what to make of her sometimes! I'm just glad that for the time being she seems very comfortable being herself

I don't specifically ask about self-made languages. I do, however, ask about language in general, especially for kids who are under five years of age. For toddlers, I specifically ask how many/what words they say (mama/dada/up/hi/bye/more/etc). For toddlers, do they put 2 words/3 words/more together. For 3-5 year olds, who understands their speech and to what extent? Mothers usually understand most of what the kids say; by 4 speech should be mostly understandable to a stranger.

So although I don't ask specifically about that, certainly there's more than just a momentary discussion about language.

That's funny . . . DD5 trained a couple of kids in her (non-gifted) kindergarten to follow her around barking like dogs. At the Thanksgiving feast, she introduced us, "Mama, these are my puppies." I like the things that smart kids do.

Hi momtogirls! I always thought this was quite an odd unique thing to do Lol Whenever I tried to talk to any of my friends about it, they would just look at me like I had two heads...My ds at age 7 made up his own language with words, symbols, and facial expressions to go with it. In school he only used this made up language haha It was a phase for about 6 months...On and off now he has made up other various languages. Now he loves learning Latin and Greek. My dd6 is into only mirror writing...Teacher LOVES that!!! I love these creative kids of all of ours!!!

My kids did this too. They are now into other stuff. If it is driving anyone crazy, it may pass. It's fun to read the stories.

DD8.5 started her language around the age of 3 and sometimes reverts back to it when she is trying to think aloud and doesn't want DD3.5 to know what she is talking about. And vice verse - talk about confusing - each of them wandering around talking in their own language at the same time! (It drives DH husband crazy some days )

The funny thing is though that they also have their own language between themselves which no one else knows.

Some of my friends have commented on their "noises" and they explain that it is their language and sometimes give the details of it and sometimes not.

wow, awesome aunt!!