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Sudden Language / Accent Acquisition (Xenoglossy; Foreign Accent Syndrome)

Since I had the stroke odd little peices of information I thought I had forgotten sometimes pop into my head, often randomly. It feels like my brain is finding routes to information around the damage and one by product of that is that other bits and peices get thrown up, often with great clarity.

I was trying to remember a name of a songs a couple of days ago for a very important reason (to be played at my fathers funeral) and it was frustrating that other things, songs, memories, names kept coming into my head, but eventually I got there.

The other side effect is that what was once mild synathesia became quite strong when I first had the stroke, particualary where individual letters are concerned, and while it's subsided now there is still a marked increase in my synathesia.
 
lordboreal said:
Since I had the stroke odd little peices of information I thought I had forgotten sometimes pop into my head, often randomly. It feels like my brain is finding routes to information around the damage and one by product of that is that other bits and peices get thrown up, often with great clarity.


I get this a lot too with my MS. Things just suddenly pop into my head for noapparent reason. For instance, I was recently just sittig around,kntting and watching TV, not really concentrting on either, when my old US Social Security number just popped into my head. I haven't used the number or even thought about it for around 20 years, there ws nothing in what I was watching to remind me of it. But there it was.

I think of it as the lesions in my brain causing a kind of corruption ofmymemory files, like what happens when your computer tarts opening everything t the file you want
 
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So, has anyone every actually ended up speaking an identified foreign language (i.e. a native speaker could understand them) rather than just gaining a dodgy accent?
 
Its a good point - they showed a woman on the weird medical stories show they had on channel 5 and whatever was going on it wasn't any English accent (not even to American ears - I'd hope). The closest I could describe it was like a cross between Mary Poppins and an Australian.
 
'My stroke left me with foreign accent'
By Jane Elliott
Health reporter, BBC News

When Richard Murray called his banking clients, his strong Birmingham accent heavily laced with a Hereford twang made him instantly recognisable.

But a year ago, Richard, 30, had a stroke and lost the power of speech. Now he speaks with a heavy foreign accent.

Some say his accent is definitely French, others are sure it is Eastern European or Italian.

"Now when I call my clients and say 'It is me, Richard Murray', they say 'Who?'. They don't recognise my voice.

"So now when I speak to people I preface it with: 'I have had a stroke and this is why I speak with a foreign accent'.

Vocabulary

"When I was first re-learning to speak the only words I could say were hi, bye, yes and no. So if anyone asked me anything else I was lost.

"I remember being at the till at the supermarket when I heard someone say 'bloody foreigner'.

"I have also had people expecting me to speak in foreign languages because of my accent."

Richard's health problems started when he broke his toe while on honeymoon in Mauritius in September 2005.

He flew back to the UK days later and developed a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or blood clot.

Unbeknown to him, Richard had a hole in his heart which had been present from birth.

The blood clot had travelled through the hole into his brain and led to him having a stroke nine days later.

Recovery

He was left unable to speak and without feeling down his right side.

He had the hole in his heart repaired and, with the help of a physiotherapist, he regained movement in his right side, but he had to relearn his speech from scratch.

"I didn't know much about stroke and just assumed that once the clot had dispersed that I would be able to speak again.

"I didn't know that it meant a part of my brain had been damaged and that I would have to learn to speak again."

He said that although speaking with a foreign accent was unusual, he was just delighted to be able to communicate again.

"I am quite a chatty man, so it was frustrating not to be able to join in conversations."

Researchers at Oxford University have found that patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome have suffered damage to the tiny areas of the brain that affect speech.

The result is often a drawing out or clipping of the vowels that mimic the accent of a particular country, such as Spain or France - even though the sufferer has limited exposure to that accent.

The syndrome was first identified during World War II, when a Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel damage to her brain. She developed a strong German accent which led to her being ostracised by her community.

'Pejorative implications'

Dr Keith Muir, a senior lecturer in neurology at the University of Glasgow, said that while the cause of the foreign accent was not known, many believed it to be simply damaged speech patterns.

"This only affects a very small percentage of people who have had strokes," he said.

"After a stroke the brain tends to reorganise itself, and you tend to find that someone who had an additional language loses it and has to relearn it and their other learned knowledge."

Dr Muir added that loss of speech and altered speech patterns could cause serious distress to people who had had strokes.

'It is quite common for people to be confused about speech and to have problems following stroke.

"But there can be quite pejorative implications put on people with slurred speech, such as that they have been drinking or that their intelligence is impaired."

Beverley Silke, of the Stroke Association said: "Someone in the UK has a stroke every five minutes.

"It is the leading cause of adult disability and Richard has shown true courage and determination in overcoming the effects of his stroke."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6407161.stm
 
Vowel surgery: brain op boy baffles doctors after waking up with 'posh’ RP accent
By Laura Clout
Last Updated: 2:31am BST 18/09/2007

A ten-year-old boy who underwent life-saving brain surgery has astonished doctors by emerging with a different accent.

William McCartney-Moore fell seriously ill with a rare strain of meningitis last March and had an operation to remove fluid on his brain.

But in the weeks since his treatment, William, from York, has lost his northern twang and acquired the elongated vowels of received pronunciation (RP).

His mother, Ruth McCartney-Moore, said: "He survived the operation and the most amazing thing is that he came out of surgery with a completely different accent."

The family first noticed the change in William’s accent after he left hospital in April: "We went on a family holiday to Northumberland and he was playing on the beach and he said 'Look, I’ve made a sand castle’ but really stretched the vowels, which made him sound really posh."

"We all just stared back at him — we couldn’t believe what we had heard because he had a northern accent before his illness. He had no idea why we were staring at him — he just thought he was speaking normally."

William’s illness began with a headache and a high temperature, she said. "A few days later he had a massive seizure."

William was rushed to hospital and doctors found he had meningitis and empyema — or pus on the brain — and he was operated on.

Mrs McCartney-Moore, 45, a music teacher said: "All the doctors and surgeons thought he was going to die. Before he went in I cut off a lock of his hair to keep.

"He lost everything. He couldn’t read or write, he couldn’t recognise things and he’d lost all his social skills."

But 18 months on, William has made a near-total recovery.

His mother added: "It’s bizarre, but I think it has worked in his favour because we all smile when he does it and it has brought a bit of humour into the situation."

Phil Edge, the head of therapy services for international charity Brainwave, said it is rare for a child to change accents after surgery.

"Some people believe … that the [brain] cells that are damaged can’t be replaced and other cells take over — so here he has re-learned how to speak with a different accent.

"It is not very common, I have worked here 20 years and can’t think of an instance where a child has spoken with a different accent after surgery."

http://tinyurl.com/ysy3fe
 
British charity worker recovers from car crash in Romania ... to speak with ROMANIAN accent
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:17 PM on 02nd April 2010

A British charity worker who was left unable to speak after a near-fatal car crash has got her voice back - with a new Romanian accent.

Jacquie Aubry, 59, from Chandlers Ford, Hamoshire, could not walk or talk after sustaining life-threatening head injuries when her 4x4 hit a tree outside Bucharest in December last year.

The mother-of-two, who runs a children's farm project in Romania with husband Lewis, 74, went through intensive therapy even listened to a radio interview she gave before the crash to help her learn to speak again.

But after slowly recovering the power of speech, Mrs Aubry - who was born and raised in Dorset - surprised family and friends with a distinct Romanian twang to her voice.

She said: 'People have told me I speak with an accent which is weird because it still sounds the same to me.

'I have been told by my speech therapist that it will come back in time it just takes patience.

'After the accident happened I could only manage noises and a few broken words which only my daughter could understand.

'The more I talk the better it gets and I hope I can get back to how I sounded before.'

Jacquie, who has been visiting Romania with Lewis for the past seven years, running their charity Growing Care, was on her way to Bucharest Airport to collect her daughter Sian, 28, when the accident happened.

She was cut up on a narrow country road by a hit-and-run driver, forcing her into a tree which crushed the drivers' side of her pick-up truck.

Jacquie spent three weeks in hospitals where she had to undergo three separate CT scans to asses the extent of her brain damage.

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0k2lt3IRm
 
SimonBurchell said:
So, has anyone every actually ended up speaking an identified foreign language (i.e. a native speaker could understand them) rather than just gaining a dodgy accent?
I would guess that that would just be impossible.
 
bosskR said:
SimonBurchell said:
So, has anyone every actually ended up speaking an identified foreign language (i.e. a native speaker could understand them) rather than just gaining a dodgy accent?
I would guess that that would just be impossible.

Does this case count?
On 14 September 2007 said:
Czech Matej Kus, 17, was banged on the head in a racing accident - and came to speaking perfect English

Peter Waite, the promoter for Kus's team, the Berwick Bandits, said: "I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"It was in a really clear English accent, no dialect or anything. Whatever happened in the crash must have rearranged things in his head.

"Before his crash Matej's use of the English language was broken, to put it mildly.

"He was only just making a start on improving it and struggled to be understood, but was keen to learn.

"Yet here we were at the ambulance door listening to Matej talking to the medical staff in perfect English."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... glish.html
 
kmossel said:
bosskR said:
SimonBurchell said:
So, has anyone every actually ended up speaking an identified foreign language (i.e. a native speaker could understand them) rather than just gaining a dodgy accent?
I would guess that that would just be impossible.
Does this case count?
On 14 September 2007 said:
Czech Matej Kus, 17, was banged on the head in a racing accident - and came to speaking perfect English

Peter Waite, the promoter for Kus's team, the Berwick Bandits, said: "I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"It was in a really clear English accent, no dialect or anything. Whatever happened in the crash must have rearranged things in his head.

"Before his crash Matej's use of the English language was broken, to put it mildly.

"He was only just making a start on improving it and struggled to be understood, but was keen to learn.

"Yet here we were at the ambulance door listening to Matej talking to the medical staff in perfect English."

Yesterday he added: "It's unbelievable that I was speaking English like that, especially without an accent.
"Hopefully I can pick English up over the winter for the start of next season so I'll be able to speak it without someone having to hit me over the head first. :D
 
Croatian teenager wakes from coma speaking fluent German
A 13-year-old Croatian girl who fell into a coma woke up speaking fluent German.
Published: 10:46PM BST 12 Apr 2010

The girl, from the southern town of Knin, had only just started studying German at school and had been reading German books and watching German TV to become better, but was by no means fluent, according to her parents.

Since waking up from her 24 hour coma however, she has been unable to speak Croatian, but is able to communicate perfectly in German. :shock:

Doctors at Split's KB Hospital claim that the case is so unusual, various experts have examined the girl as they try to find out what triggered the change.

Hospital director Dujomir Marasovic said: "You never know when recovering from such a trauma how the brain will react. Obviously we have some theories although at the moment we are limited in what we can say because we have to respect the privacy of the patient."

Psychiatric expert Dr Mijo Milas added: "In earlier times this would have been referred to as a miracle, we prefer to think that there must be a logical explanation – its just that we haven't found it yet.

"There are references to cases where people who have been seriously ill and perhaps in a coma have woken up being able to speak other languages – sometimes even the Biblical languages such as that spoken in old Babylon or Egypt – at the moment though any speculation would remain just that – speculation – so it's better to continue tests until we actually know something."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erman.html
 
K?s’s case is really interesting, as he is a well-known sportsman and minor celebrity. Unfortunately, the effect on him didn’t last, so I suppose there’s not really any ”hard evidence” ...
 
Woman gets Chinese accent in rare case of Foreign Language Syndrome
Simon de Bruxelles

Most migraines are a pain for as long as they last but, after her most recent attack, Sarah Colwill has been left with an even bigger headache: she now speaks with a Chinese accent.

Mrs Colwill, a regular migraine sufferer, is attracting the attention of medical experts from around the world who have diagnosed her as suffering from a rare condition known as Foreign Accent Syndrome.

Changes in the brain that occurred during the migraine attack have affected her patterns of speech so severely that even even her closest friends are unable to recognise her voice.

The Devon burr that the 35-year-old IT project coordinator has had since she was a little girl has been replaced with a sing song, high-pitched intonation that they say makes her sound Chinese.

Mrs Colwill, from St Budeaux, in Plymouth, has been suffering from severe headaches for about a decade. The latest attack was so severe that her husband, Patrick, dialled 999 and she was taken to hospital by ambulance.

She has since had sporadic hemiplegic migraines diagnosed, which cause the blood vessels in her brain to expand, resulting in symptoms similar to those of a stroke, including paralysis down one side of the body.

The effects normally last no more than a few days but the attacks had became more frequent.

Mrs Colwill said: “When the ambulance crew arrived they said I definitely sounded Chinese. I spoke to my stepdaughter on the phone from hospital and she didn’t recognise who I was.

“She said I sounded Chinese. Since then I have had my friends hanging up on me because they think I’m a hoax caller.

“I speak in a much higher tone now; my voice is all squeaky. I am frustrated to sound like this. The first few weeks it was quite funny but my voice has started to annoy me now. It is not my voice.”

No more than 20 people in the world are believed to suffer from Foreign Accent Syndrome . They include a a Scottish woman who sounds South African, a 46-year-old American who began speaking in a French accent after a car crash and a British man who sounds Mexican.

The first case of Foreign Accent Syndrome was reported in Norway in 1941 when a young woman suffered a shrapnel injury to the brain during an air raid and began speaking with a strong German accent.

The brain injury replicates the speech patterns of different accents by the lengthening of syllables, a change of pitch or the mispronunciation of sounds.

After researching the syndrome on the internet Mrs Colwill has been in contact with doctors in the US and at the University of Oxford who are interested in studying what has happened to her.

John Coleman, a professor at Oxford who conducts research into Foreign Accent Syndrome, said: “[Foreign Accent Syndrome] is extremely diverse, almost certainly not ’one thing’, not a well-defined medical phenomenon, and therefore not the kind of problem that there are any easy generalisations about.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 101913.ece
 
Foreign Accent syndrome

Canadian tells how she fell off a horse.. and woke up with a Scottish accent

Jun 18 2010 By Alan Carson


A CANADIAN mum tumbled off her horse and banged her head - then woke up with a Scottish accent.

Sharon Campbell-Rayment's speech is now peppered with words such as "grand", "brilliant" and "wee" and she has been left with a tartan twang.

And the baffled mum-of-two, who has never been to Scotland, has been diagnosed as a victim of foreign accent syndrome.

Sharon, 47, revealed yesterday: "I started to talk with a wee accent. I said to my husband Doug that in his midlife he doesn't have to go out and look for a new wife. I just walked through the door."

She was thrown to the ground by her horse Malachi at her farm in Kent Bridge, Ontario, in July 2008.

Sharon said: "Unfortunately I was wearing a cowboy hat, which wasn't very protective. It just took a second for it to happen. He got spooked and went right and I went left."

She damaged both lobes, suffered concussion and was left speechless for several days.

Sharon developed a stutter as her speech slowly returned - then gained a thick Scottish brogue.

Along with the rolled r's, dropped g's, longer a's and softer s's, new words crept into her vocabulary.

She also began punctuating pauses between sentences with "em" instead of "um". It was her stunned sister Ashley who first pointed it out as they talked on the phone.

Sharon immediately found a recorder and taped her voice so she could listen back to it herself.

She said: "I was a bit aghast. But my two daughters, family and friends now all think it's a wee bit funny."

Sharon said her ancestors were Scottish but she has never visited the country.

Before the accident she was a full-time pastor and ran camps and riding lessons at her farm. Now she believes the injury has proved to be a blessing.

Stroke She said: "I really don't want to go back to the person I was. I was mad crazy, all over the place, morning till night."

Sharon is only one of around 60 brain-damaged people worldwide who have been diagnosed with the condition.

Other reported cases include an English woman who began speaking with a Jamaican accent after suffering a stroke and a Scottish man who sounded Polish after recovering from a car accident.

The condition could last a lifetime or simply disappear overnight.

Canadian expert Alex Sevigny said: "It's not that you actually speak with a new accent - you speak with something that sounds an awful lot like a new accent. We're just starting to map it out."



http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/edito ... -22341980/
 
The BBC Breakfast programme is just now showing an item about this - Coming to terms with Foreign Accent Syndrome

There are thought to be only 60 cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome in the world. People who have it start speaking with an entirely different accent.

Kay Russell suffers from the extremely rare neurological disorder. After a serious migraine, she woke up with what sounds like a French accent.

Doctors believe it is triggered following a stroke or head injury, when tiny areas of the brain linked with language, pitch and speech patterns are damaged.

It's not a real foreign accent. The sufferer has a speech defect which listeners interpret that way. Ms Russell's accent has been called eastern European as well as French.

I wonder if that was actually a minor stroke rather than a bad migraine?
 
Unusual story, in more ways than one:

American man trapped in Russia for 77 years suddenly speaks English again after stroke
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:13 AM on 14th June 2011

An American man trapped in the Soviet Union 77 years ago - deep in Stalinist times - has suddenly reverted to speaking in his native English instead of the Russian he was forced to learn to survive his epic Communist ordeal.
Kenneth Edwards, now 95, recently suffered a stroke which left him unable to communicate with his Russian family and children.
'I am having to learn Russian all over again,' he said in a halting American accent in Zlatoust, an industrial Ural Mountains outpost where he worked in a watch-making factory for 60 years, latterly as the locksmith to the head of his department.

'I say something in Russian to him, and he replies only in English,' said wife Zoya, 79.
'I only understand what he wants to say by his intonation.'

He rarely used English after his idealistic left-wing father Willard moved his family from Alabama to the USSR in 1934, the year after Franklin D Roosevelt came to power, believing the future lay with Communism not Capitalism.
Kenneth's parents and siblings found a way to escape back to the U.S., but he was stuck because his father had insisted his eldest son should give up his American citizenship and hold only a Soviet passport.

Willard himself fled as early as 1935 realising his hopes of teaching in 'progressive' schools under Stalin was fantasy. The commissar who recruited him was shot as an enemy of the people.

Detroit-born Kenneth's younger sister Marjorie managed to get a job with the U.S. embassy during the Second World War and found a way to flee back to America at the end of hostilities. But she could not secure her beloved brother's release.

Meanwhile, Kenneth was posted to a city in the Urals which, under Stalin, had no links with the outside world. A birthplace of the Russian steel industry, famous for its fine blades, it later became a centre for the manufacture of nuclear warheads.
Rather than risk imprisonment or death by seeking an exit visa from the brutal life under the dictator, he made the best of things in a country he never chose to adopt when his father insisted on the family moving to Russia.

Asked if he had regrets, Kenneth said: 'Those are very hard questions.
'I went to school. I learned a trade. I went to the institute.
'I met my wife there, we had two children. Of course, we had many difficulties.'

His return to speaking English instead of his word perfect Russian has stunned local doctors.
In 1992, when he had a reunion in Moscow with Marjorie, he had trouble speaking to her because he had forgotten much of his English.
He told her: 'I have a Russian wife and Russian children. I speak only in Russian. I think only in Russian.'

Among his neighbours, he is admired. 'He never drank or smoked and he swam each day until he was 90,' said one.
Locals say he has managed to retain a respect for both the U.S. and Russia.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1PF42blPE
 
Losing language ability due to some sort of brain injury is a huge fear for me. It is truly horrifying, as I would find myself unable to communicate with my husband, son, extended family, and friends.

I know it`s rare, and when language is effected all language tends to be effected, but the thought of being reduced to English only is one that haunts my nightmares.
When I was small, there was a friend of the family who lost her English ability due to stroke. She was reduced to short sentences in her native German, a language her husband had never learned.

Another man my grandfather knew through hospital volunteering apparently lost his English ability as he grew older - so although he was not senile, he was just blocked from communicating with family.

When I was getting married, family pressured me to make my husband learn English so that if something like that happened we`d be able to communicate... So the thought has sort of haunted my mind since. I can`t imagine the frustration and depression that would be felt in such a situation.

Still haven`t forced the husband to learn English though.
 
Maybe a bit OT but Ive been diagnosed as suffering from Tachylalia (speaking extremely rapidly).

Now that its got a nice name perhaps I'll get a benefit payment. :)
 
ramonmercado said:
Maybe a bit OT but Ive been diagnosed as suffering from Tachylalia (speaking extremely rapidly).

Now that its got a nice name perhaps I'll get a benefit payment. :)

Are you Irish?

That's just the way we roll. Seriously.

I was over in Budapest a few years ago and we were in a jewellery shop and chatting in english to the very nice assistant, and occasionally talking among ourselves about the items on display. As were buying our things, she asked us

"What language were you speaking to each other just there?"

We boggled a little bit, and said, "English?, what did it sound like?"

And she said, "I don't know, maybe norwegian?"

Irish people talk fast
 
JSouthcotts_Box said:
ramonmercado said:
Maybe a bit OT but Ive been diagnosed as suffering from Tachylalia (speaking extremely rapidly).

Now that its got a nice name perhaps I'll get a benefit payment. :)

Are you Irish?

That's just the way we roll. Seriously.

I was over in Budapest a few years ago and we were in a jewellery shop and chatting in english to the very nice assistant, and occasionally talking among ourselves about the items on display. As were buying our things, she asked us

"What language were you speaking to each other just there?"

We boggled a little bit, and said, "English?, what did it sound like?"

And she said, "I don't know, maybe norwegian?"

Irish people talk fast

But Cork people speak really fast. A majority of Corkonians probably qualify as Tachylalians.
 
I thought there were instances of people suddenly speaking a foreign language that they havent even studied at all. But since no one has pointed to any examples I take it there are none?
 
I used to work for an Irish bank and I occasionally had problems with following my boss's speech - he spoke way too fast and slurred his words. After lunchtime was particularly bad, for some reason. ;)
 
I work with a Brummie and for some reason, quite a few people sometimes do not understand what he is saying, even though he is speaking clearly! It happened to me once and it felt really strange. Even though I thought I understood his words I could note make out what he meant.
 
Englishman wakes from stroke speaking fluent Welsh
Englishman Alun Morgan bemused doctors after he woke up speaking fluent Welsh and no English following a severe stroke. He was soon diagnosed with aphasia.
[Video]
4:16PM GMT 27 Dec 2012

Alun Morgan, 81, was evacuated to Wales during the Second World War but left 70 years ago.
During his time there he was surrounded by Welsh speakers but never learned the language himself.

Mr Morgan recently suffered a stroke, but when he regained consciousness three weeks later, doctors discovered he was speaking Welsh and could not remember any English. :shock:
Doctors diagnosed Mr Morgan with aphasia, a form of brain damage which causes a shift in the brain's language centre.

It is thought that the Welsh Mr Morgan heard as a boy had sunk in without him knowing and was unlocked after he suffered the stroke.

Mr Morgan, who is retired and lives with his wife Yvonne in Bathwick, Somerset, is now trying to regain his fluency of English.
"I'd not lived in Wales since I was evacuated there during the war. Gradually the English words came back, but it wasn't easy,'' he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... Welsh.html

There must be a genetic basis to it, somehow - Alun Morgan is such a welsh name! 8)
 
This is the sort of thing I was talking about above. He never (conciously) learned the language or used it before. Somehow he absorbed it and can speak it.

Wheras I can take classes for years and still not speak a foreign language.
 
Xenoglossy

I briefly knew an Englishman who spoke English in a strong South African accent.I- along with other people at the time - assumed SA was his country of origin.However he insisted he'd developed the accent only after working in Russia on a 12 month contract When we questioned this and asked him to explain he shrugged his shoulders and told us he couldn't. He was as puzzled as everyone else and a little embarassed.Perhaps he'd had a stroke or similar and wanted to cover that up ( work issues etc ). He SEEMED healthy and rational enough.From the little I gathered of his background I'm guessing he spoke with a PR voice at some time in his past. " Posh " PR at that.
 
rynner2 said:
Woman gets Chinese accent in rare case of Foreign Language Syndrome
Simon de Bruxelles

Most migraines are a pain for as long as they last but, after her most recent attack, Sarah Colwill has been left with an even bigger headache: she now speaks with a Chinese accent.

Mrs Colwill, a regular migraine sufferer, is attracting the attention of medical experts from around the world who have diagnosed her as suffering from a rare condition known as Foreign Accent Syndrome.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 101913.ece

The Woman Who Woke Up Chinese
BBC1 South West
Today on BBC1 South West from 10:35pm to 11:30pm

Documentary following 38-year-old Sarah Colwill, whose life was changed forever in 2010 when she was rushed to hospital suffering from what she thought was a severe migraine; when she woke up her local Plymouth accent had disappeared, leaving her sounding Chinese. She was diagnosed with Foreign Accent Syndrome, a rare condition with no clear cause. For the past three years, Sarah has had to deal with other people's puzzled reactions and the huge impact her new voice has had on her life and her family. Now, Sarah is determined to find out what happened inside her head. Can science give her any answers? And will she ever get back to the person she used to be?

Presumably it will be found on iPlayer later.
 
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