Being born a twin not only means you get a best friend to share life with, it also means you will be the target of lots of questions about twins.
Some twins hate this, but we love people’s curiosity and are always happy to chat about what it is like to be a twin. After all we consider ourselves lucky to be twins.
We thought we would share with you some interesting twin facts.
Twins can invent their own language
When we were young, my parents say we had our own secret language. According to research 40% of twins will also develop a language all of their own.
These languages are called autonomous languages. Researchers suspect that twin babies use each other as models in developing language when an adult model language is frequently absent. The “language” consists of inverted words and onomatopoeic expressions.
These autonomous languages are formed when two very close babies are learning how to speak a real language alongside one another and naturally often play and communicate with each other. While this is more common among twins, since they are more likely to be around each other and developing at the same rate, this phenomenon can also sporadically occur between two babies who are not twins. The made up “languages” often disappear soon after childhood, once the children have learned a real language.
Whilst we no longer have a secret language, since we are so close, we talk in incomplete sentences. Our friends find it hard to keep track of our conversations as we can predict the next sentence before it is spoken. A conversation between us may go something like this.
Elise: ‘ Did you see…’
Teneale: ‘Yes I did…’
Elise: “I was so funny…’
Both burst out laughing
Teneale: ‘Let’s go get a ….’
Elise: ” cool will just go get my wallet…”
How Do twins occur?
To understand how Twins are conceived, you need to know there are two different types of twins. Fraternal Twins, who develop from 2 eggs (ova) and 2 separate sperm and Identical Twins, who develop from the same egg (ovum) and same sperm. The egg then later splits to develop to separate babies with exactly the same genetic information.
We are Identical Twins and share 99.97% the same DNA, but despite looking very similar we have different personalities.
Twins Can Be Conceived at Different Times and by Different Fathers
Usually, one egg is released during ovulation. But in cases of hyperovulation, multiple eggs are released. Sometimes that happens with an interval of a few days in between.
After one egg is fertilized and begins to travel to the uterus for implantation, another egg is fertilized by sperm from a later incident of sexual intercourse. The result is fraternal twins who are actually conceived a few days apart. This phenomenon is known as superfetation.
There have even been instances of fraternal twins with different fathers.
This occurs when a woman releases multiple eggs and has sexual relations with more than one partner. If an egg is fertilized by sperm from one man, and then another egg is fertilized by sperm from another man, the result is fraternal twins with different fathers. This phenomenon is termed superfecundation.
Identical Twins have the same DNA but do not have the same fingerprint
We didn’t know if we were fraternal or identical twins until we were in our 30’s and took a DNA test.
The results showed there was absolutely no doubt we were identical twins with 99.97% the same DNA.
Whilst we share the same DNA our fingerprints are not the same. Although we can log into each others phones with finger scanning technology.
When identical twins are conceived, they start out with the same fingerprints, however during weeks six through 13 of pregnancy, as the babies start to move, they each touch the amniotic sac, and unique ridges and lines are formed on each twin’s hand that result in different fingerprints.
The Style Scout Twins 