Do Your Kids Ever Talk in Made up Words?

Oh, completely normal! My daughter is 7 now, but we still talk about how she had her own language that we called Peytonese (her name is Peyton) and she still remembers some of those made up words and what they meant... Don't worry, you'll miss it when he stops.

Yes, perfectly normal. You can even use the word with him if it is a word that he uses often.
If it's hard for an adult to have a conversation you can tell him that those words have to be saved for play or private time and that when he's speaking to another adult (outside the family home or what ever you choose) then he must speak in regular words because some people don't understand his language (You may also ask him to give the language a name for fun.)
I worked in Early Education for 18 years and most kids do it at some point. My child has been speaking since she was a tiny thing and has just begun doing it over the last year.
When she get's frustrated she says "aw Plankens"! Whatever... after all most "slang" words were made-up at some point.

Yes
Its normal.
My son is 4 and my daughter is 8 and when they play together, especially pretend play, they talk in a made up language. Only they know, what they are talking about.
When I try to say stuff for fun, they roll their eyeballs and say "Oh Mommy, you don't know how!"

my newly turned 4yr old daughter thinks it's hilarious to talk in made up words.....sounds normal

Yep. My 3.5 year old has an imaginary friend named Rogi and will speak her own language with him/her (the gender changes too, lol).
Doggy and kitty speak are also very popular in our house and she can consistently pretend to be a cat for hours at a time... it gets a bit annoying but I have heard this from other moms and their kids as well. Seems to be a normal 3 year old thing...

My daughter does the exact same thing and she was actually an early talker - motor skills are another story - but she's very verbal. When I ask her what her doll's name is she sometimes says something like, "Her name is Moosha-booka-doola-cali... Can you say that?" She also has little conversations with her dolls and every single word is made up. When she's being particularly challenging she'll answer me in a snotty toned string of made up words. Then she'll say, "Isn't that just so funny?" I really think they're just playing with sounds and it's normal. I'm glad you posted this because I've gone back and forth wondering if it's "weird" or if it's normal. I'm having an "it's totally normal" day today, probably because she didn't really do it much today and talked like a very "typical" 3 year old all day long without much of the nonsense words. I teach elementary school and part of reading assessment is to have kids sound out nonsense words to see if they know the spelling patterns and not just memorizing them on sight. So, I'll just assume that my kid is ahead of the game by making up her own nonsense words... Ha!

That is very developmental appropriate. I love that he he is fun, silly, creative, and easy going. Assessing whether there is a problem by asking him to talk normaly makes sense. Now, that you know he can I encourage you to let the joy of childhood take over. I hope he rubs off on some adults as we are way too serious.

My nearly 4 yr old grand daughter does this all the time! She makes up words, renames toys and animals with strange sounding words, and has an imagination as big as a country. She will line up 20 toy dinosaurs and then tell me their names, Mooco, Natcha, BooCo Meeky, Tala, Beekee,,and on and on. I just sit in awe of how she can do this. I told her M. some of the names and found out there are some cartoons for kids she has seen that actually have those names. So it wasnt so made up as I had thought. Be sure to get it on video so you can show him years from now how funny he was. Keep in mind they hear songs and words on tv, or wherever, and misunderstand them. Just today she asked me to sing the "Barbie" song. I didnt know what Barbie song she meant so I asked her to sing it once for me. I recognized it from some video. Its supposed to be a deep mans voice saying, "Come on Barbie, Lets go party", but she was saying Come on Barbie, echo potty" and laughing like crazy! She also says people who fly airplanes are "pirates" instead of pilots, and they live at the "airpork", instead of airport.. And when she spins in circles, she stops and says whoa, grama, Im "busy",,, I think in their young ears they just hear stuff different and then compounded by imperfect 3 yr old speech it just comes out this way. I for one, will miss all this cute funny mistaken stuff when she starts to learn the real words. )=

Oh yes, my 3 year old has been making up words for at least a year. At one point I quizzed him and found that he was consistently calling an object or color the same silly word. It was like he made up his own language. I'm not worried since he otherwise communicates and functions normally in society!

Just tonight, my son (he is 6) told me a poem he made up, and he made up the word "chowd" (to rhyme with crowd). He informed me that it meant bolwing ball (don't ask me why), but to him it was completely normal to make up a word for it to work in his poem. I take it as a sign of imagination. :-) Also, when both my kids were around your son's age, they would sometimes use made-up words when they were pretending to talk on the phone--they wanted to imitate adults' conversations but couldn't string together enough words fast enough, so they just made up their own. Very adorable.

so normal :)...i have a three yr old that has always talked well and he still makes up words and talks silly sometimes...they they it is funny...

Yes! My 3.5yr old daughter does this too, quite the imagination! I always wonder how she comes up with all of it; it must mean they are smart ;)

B,
Yup. All the time. Any time you focus on it - you draw it out and it becomes a 'hot button' if you don't like it. You can look at it negatively - it's not ENGLISH. Or you can look at it positively - he's being creative. Either way, it's not harming anyone (barring someone like a certain grandpa who insists on being spoken to in words he can understand...) I woudn't encourage or discourage, but I would talk about needing to use words adults can understand if they are older...(I wouldn't say OLD! ; )

I like it because he goes on and on sometimes just getting sillier and sillier, and laughing for real (as opposed to that FAKE laugh that is just get someone's attention!) and he really enjoys it. it has no bearing on his vocabulary (for a 2 year old that learned the word contraband, and lamberton conservatory in a heartbeat, top of the list of dozens!) he just has FUN with it. Which is really.all.it.is.

Good luck and enjoy your time with your creative boy!
M.

He sounds like a normal boy being silly. From your description he did it just this once tonight? Why would that worry you? It shows a good grasp of language, actually, and that he has a silly sense of humor. I might worry if it becomes permanent or he shows signs of regression.

When my neice was 3, she named all of her stuffed animals either" wutcha", "mutcha" or" gutcha"....so funny. She is is 4 1/2 now and still does it sometimes. I wouldn't worry :)

My 2.5 year old does this constantly! Sometimes the made up words can be quite comical....today he told my husband "daddy, your a gyna!" pronounced like "vagina". the kid hasn't really heard/learned that word yet, he just made it up!

My son was speech delayed and he had a year of intense therapy, he just turned 4 and especially when he is excited still goes into what we call "jabber" mode. We can understand about half of what he is saying...I think the rest is random fill ins because he is trying to mimic what he hears as our conversations, but there is still the moments of silliness when he just likes the way something sounds or how it rolls off the tongue I guess, and I think that is "typical" of all young children.
Alex has certain words that he uses inappropriately no matter how many times we correct him. He calls foods that he does not like "Tasty"
I cannot think of any of the silly words he uses off the top of my head, but for us it is our "normal" Alex is on the spectrum. I get a little irritated with the over used "normal" ...our family has adopted the saying "Normal is a setting on your washing machine"
It is most likely a phase and will pass, enjoy the sillies and do not make a big deal about it, heck play along...

Totally normal, you insisting he speak normally only makes him want to talk silly more if it really annoys you ignore it, once the attention goes away it will mostly subside.

Um, mine is 15 years old now and we still have days that we talk in silly nonsense. "Backwards" day and days when we sing our conversations.

Perfectly normal for your little guy to make up words and be silly. It's fun!