Nearly-identical Southern California twins Grace and Virginia Kennedy were born in 1970.
Because Gracie and Ginny weren’t socialized properly as young children, they ended up creating their own idioglossia, or “twin language” — a fast-tempo mix of English and German (their mother’s native tongue). They even created new names for themselves: Poto and Cabengo.
They made national headlines in 1978, and two years later were the subject of a documentary called Poto and Cabengo [vid]. In the film, you can hear the girls speaking their language — you can even hear one call the other “Cabengo” a couple of times.
The Kennedy twins have since gone through speech therapy, learned English, and found employment. So I doubt they remember much of their childhood language, let alone how they came up with the names “Poto” and “Cabengo” for one another…
Sources:
- Canby, Vincent. “Film: ‘Poto and Cabengo,’ Story of Unusual Twins.” New York Times 25 Mar. 1980.
- Poto and Cabengo – Wikipedia
Image: Screenshot of Poto and Cabengo
[Latest update: Apr. 2025]