Back in the old days, when Chris was learning to talk, I was still figuring out how to be a parent. I was really young, for one thing, and he was my third baby in 3 years. I suppose it is natural that at first I didn’t notice that he wasn’t talking much. Not much English, anyway.

When the next baby came along, Chris was two years old. He spoke two English words, Mama and hi. By this point, I was quite aware that something was … different. This was a kid who was obviously bright. He could make complicated lego structures, inventions of his own and duplicates of ones he saw. He could take anything apart.

But he didn’t speak our language. He did speak! It just wasn’t English or any other human language.

He started small. He named the guys (his brothers and dad) variations of the word Ganh. It was pronounced in the back of his throat and sounded kind of primitive. Aaron was Green Ganh. Daniel was Brown Ganh. (Now, he didn’t use the color words at all when asked “what color is this lego?”) But his brothers apparently had colors. He had several hundred of these weird constructions, which all of us understood perfectly.

Once we saw one of his “words” born. By this time, he was two years, nine months. Daniel had just started kindergarten, and I had yet to figure out a good morning routine with the kindergarten boy and his three baby siblings. So we were late getting out the door, and I was trying to hurry them to the bus stop. Up ahead I could see the bus nearly there, and we were not nearly there. So I said, “Run!”

Just as I said this, Daniel stepped hard on a manhole cover and it clanged loudly. We all laughed. (Okay, maybe it doesn’t sound funny to you, but it was early in the morning and none of us had had coffee yet.) Chris said, “Run Ganh!” and laughed, again. And runganh became … funny. Cartoons were runganh. Silly faces were runganh.

His language had a decent primitive grammar. He understood us but answered in his own language. I suppose some parents would have refused to answer unless he used the “correct” words. I’m not some parents. He was and is always his own person. I’ve since learned that his language was similar in some ways to twin languages.

Eventually, he started speaking English. He wouldn’t always have eager sibling interpreters at his side, and people out in the world didn’t understand how a thing could be “runganh”. So now he says “funny” or “humorous” or any of the synonyms he chooses.