Okay, So If I Make Them IDENTICAL Twins...is what I Hear True?

So I have heard...

On the secret language thing it is incredibly rare that twins really develop a language and usually only happens if they are kept in severe isolation. "Twin talk" is normally the babies trying to learn to speak. One baby makes a distinct sound, and the other baby tries to mimic it. They usually don't mimic the sound correctly (just like they don't mimic adults correctly at first when trying to learn to speak) but they will often mimic it consistently so it sounds like they are purposefully responding with something that has meaning.

As grow older these private words and phrases sometimes take on meaning that a complete outsider can't figure out. (Parents and siblings almost always know what they mean. They were there when it developed and have the context clues to figure it out) But it isn't a true language, it's a more extreme form of having a child that calls spaghetti "scetty" because they can't pronounce it correctly. Most of the time its no more than a dozen or so words, and like with calling pasta scetty they generally stop as they grow older and learn the correct pronunciation.

It's also worth noting that because they mimic each other's nonsense words, as well as real language, twins are often language delayed.

I'm not sure if it IS 100% scientifically proven, but there are plenty of anecdotes to support what you ask about, and it is certainly popular belief that these CAN be true. Not always true, but possible.

Probably not, but in your fictional universe, it can be true.

Scientifically, no. Twins are simply two people with identical DNA. They wouldn't have any more psychic connection than clones would have and no less than two people of identical age who have been raised together.
I was reading an interview with the actors who play Weasley twins and they said how annoyed they got when people treated them as a unit, or asked them about their psychic powers with each other. Twins are two individual people, not one.

Although, as MAP says, it's your WIP, you are allowed to make the rules.

Some do, some don't.

Like others have said, this is one of these urban myths. Yes, sometimes twins are especially close, sometimes they make up languages, sometimes they seem almost psychically connected. But the same's true for any siblings. Twins are just people.

Some twins will report a psychic bond -- making it IMHO a subjective reality for them. I think we can assume it is not an objective fact in any context.

There is tons of research out there about identical twins, their unique bond, even after they've been separated. About ten years ago I spend a year researching twin bonding. The whole nature vs. nurture is fascinating stuff.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400064961/?tag=absowrit-20 this is a memoir by twin sisters reunited
This one has a lot of good information, I've read it. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0452280575/?tag=absowrit-20
This probably won't help you, but it's creepy good if you're interested http://www.amazon.com/dp/009958641X/?tag=absowrit-20 .

Theo81 said:

They wouldn't have any more psychic connection than clones would have

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While I have no reason to doubt this based on my understanding of biology, I have to leave my mind open to the possibility, considering we don't have any data at all on human clones.

veinglory said:

Some twins will report a psychic bond -- making it IMHO a subjective reality for them. I think we can assume it is not an objective fact in any context.

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There have been a lot of studies on the bond though. I've read a lot of them and it's fascinating. A while back I became interested in twins and read a lot of studies about twinship. But I agree there is a lot of subjectivity in anecdotal accounts and I don't count this as fact.

There is an awful lot of nonsense talked about twins, so you could definitely write about psychic bonds and secret languages and find resonance with many readers.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=...kTkpiw5CTD3zfthk-w6tg9Ljc#v=onepage&q&f=false

(sorry for the long url)

As the mother of identical twins now 15, I can answer with complete authority that yes, twins have a special bond. My daughters can communicate with a glance, they can finish each other's sentences in any conversation, and they're tuned to each other. They don't always get along but that bond remains no matter what.

Maryn said:

Here's a special bond between twin sisters.

Maryn, unable to resist

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I had an article about those sisters that I stole from a magazine in a takeaway. Then I lost it. Their story is fascinating.

Years ago, I read a magazine article about twins who both needed new wardrobes. They decided to separate and shop by themselves, with the idea being that they would buy different items and therefore end up with a double wardrobe that they could share. At the end of the day they met up again, only to find that they'd both purchased the exact same garments! I thought that was pretty hilarious.

The same article mentioned a pair of twins who got the exact same test scores as each other, despite being separated for the testing, and they even got the exact same questions wrong.

Alpha Echo said:

Ooooh, awesome! Thank you!

I think it's really interesting too. One of my favorite books is Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger.

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Ohhh. I read that. I've been interested in twins and multiples since reading about the Kienast quintuplets in Good Housekeeping when I was seven. One of the girls was named Amy so that drew me right in. I knew a woman with 2 of her three triplets being identical (from the same sac) and her boys were asked to do all kinds of research studies (they got paid for some of them too) at a local teaching hospital. I always thought I'd like to write a story with multiples as the main characters.

My mom and aunt are identical twins. I've asked them if they can feel each other's pain, or when something wasn't right. But they said that they haven't felt anything like that.

My aunt came to live with my parents when I was 17, and she's still there. So, I don't know if it makes a difference that they're sharing the same house, or if they have to be separated. They're from Germany, so for a few years they were separated by an ocean, but even then they didn't feel that "connection".

On the other hand, I knew a guy who was artistically talented, a heavy drug user, into paranoid conspiracy theories just short of crazyness -- just flat out weird.

His identical twin, whom I met, was a straight shooting career military man, a marine.

They didn't seem to share much of a bond. On the other hand, i did see some striking similarities -- they just had taken their identical genetic make-up in different directions -- for example, both occasionally had an aggressive demeanor. But the path they channeled it into was of course quite different.

For what it's worth, I know a little girl who wasn't a twin who spoke her own language. She had young siblings and she ended up just making up a whole slew of words for various objects and what not. Most of it was probably from hearing her siblings babble and be unable to say words when she was young, but she could speak this "language" until she was four years old, and it was utterly fascinating to watch. She did it especially during pretend play with dolls and toys and what not. Only one of her siblings could understand enough to "translate." It was completely fascinating, but I definitely believe it happens.