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One of the strangest things I've ever heard of....

by Andie
12 replies
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This is a new one for me........how ODD!!

A British woman has suddenly started speaking with a Chinese accent after suffering a severe migraine, she said in comments quoted by British media Tuesday. Sarah Colwill believes she has Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) which has caused her distinctive West Country drawl to be replaced with a Chinese twang, even though she has never even visited the country.
The 35-year-old from Plymouth, southwest England, is now undergoing speech therapy following an acute form of migraine last month which reportedly left her with a form of brain damage.
"I moved to Plymouth when I was 18 months old so I have always spoken like a local. But following one attack, an ambulance crew arrived and they said I definitely sounded Chinese," she said.
"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."
Colwill added: "The first few weeks of the accent was quite funny but to think I am stuck with this Chinese accent is getting me down. My voice has started to annoy me now. It is not my voice."
FAS has been documented around the world and is usually linked to a stroke or traumatic brain injury. It was first recorded in the early 20th century and there are thought to be only a couple of dozen sufferers around the world.



(makes the migraines I have had feel rather harmless now...lol)
Andie
  • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
    Sounds to me like her severe migraine was actually a mini-stroke.

    Tina
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    • Profile picture of the author Matthew Duggan
      Originally Posted by TMG Enterprises View Post

      Sounds to me like her severe migraine was actually a mini-stroke.

      Tina
      That's usually the cause, according to Wikipedia. Any kind of brain damage could lead to this. Makes you realise how incredible and yet fragile the brain is.
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      • Profile picture of the author atulhost
        Originally Posted by Matthew Duggan View Post

        That's usually the cause, according to Wikipedia. Any kind of brain damage could lead to this. Makes you realise how incredible and yet fragile the brain is.
        Yes I agree, the human brain is the most powerful thing in the world.
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  • Profile picture of the author proserve
    very strange...
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  • Profile picture of the author whateverpedia
    This is probably even stranger.

    A croatian girl who went into a coma awoke speaking a different language. Before she spoke Croatian, afterwards German.

    See story here: Croatian girl switches to speaking in German after waking from coma - mirror.co.uk
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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew Duggan
    Yeah, that is a bit mad.

    There have been a few cases of this over the years. One lady in the UK ended up with a French accent, despite not actually speaking a word of it. what's worse is that she would go to France on holiday and the locals would hear her accent when she spoke to her family and assume French was her mother tongue. Awkward.

    This might shed some more light on it: Foreign accent syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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  • Profile picture of the author Andie
    I used to work with a girl that had massive migraines and suffered several mini-strokes, but she was (luckily) never brain-damaged from them.
    It just seems so strange that one would pick up an accent or even Language they were Never exposed to ---
    with such amazing capabilities you'd think we'd be able to figure out more about how our brain works huh?
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    Yeah, I have heard of this thing happening a lot, all things considered. AND, when you consider how the brain works, maybe it is understandable. It is basically a network of a bunch of tiny processors and those that are more prominent get the override others. If your MAIN language gets shutoff somehow, another will be more natural and may be what you end up trying to use. Like a person that speaks several languages forgetting a word in their native language, and almost wanting to use a FOREIGN one.

    And a LOT of things can cause a migraine. Some(like brain cancer) are like, and include, stroke events. Such events WOULD disable part of the mind. Of course, if cells around the disabled part grow into the newly inactive area, some things may be recovered, etc... It is almost like when you remember one thing and it brings back other things that may seem unrelated. Heck, if your computer stops working, pluging it into ANOTHER socket may help. SAME concept.

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Underground SEO
    these things actualy happen surprisingly often.
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  • Profile picture of the author NenadR
    Alas, the Croatian girl story turned out to be fake. (Read it in a Serbian newspaper, so no link)...

    There have been numerous cases of people speaking in different accents after a head injury , although this is the first time I heard of migraines causing it. I speak with a combination of a Serbian and South African accent, so perhaps a head trauma would help in my case...
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    • Profile picture of the author Robbe
      Please excuse my somehow bad english...

      I must say that for those of you who actually believe that a person suddenly can speak a language without any exposure of it in the past... think again. It's not possible. The human languages have evolved over thousands of years and it's not until recent time that people have the opportunity to communicate at the level we do today. It's the same as if a dog suddenly would wake up one day and start "speaking cow-language" (mooo!), it's just not possible. :rolleyes:

      If the person have been exposed to the language he or she suddenly are speaking or have an accent from, it's clearly something in the mind that have gone completely wrong. That happens

      Anyway... that's my point of view.
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