“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.’”
Read more at Yahoo News (thanks, SonOfSam)
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I read about this in the paper. Scary how easily affected the brain is….
That is hilarious, more so because she believes you’d have to go to China to know what a chinese accent sounds like.
hahahahaha wtf!!
I knew a guy from Lancashire this happened to – it was crazy and as a kid I was convinced he couldn’t be for real. He’d had an awful accident when a farm tractor fell on him, or something – he’d been in a coma for a long while and after he woke up he could only speak English with a pronounced French accent. He’s been that way ever since! So strange to hear – especially since I knew his whole family, who were a rural lancashire farming family and therefore spoke their local accent VERY broadly!
I know somebody who got knocked over as a kid – when he woke up from his coma he had (and still has 10 years later) an austrailian accent. He has a theory that whilst he was comatosed the tv in his room was on (hearing familiar voices aid recovery) He believes that his recovering brain picked up on the accents on Neighbours and Home and Away. The brain is so odd!
As someone who has had migraines for over 20 years, all I can say is… Hmmmm….!!!!
For people who genuinely experience migraines (as opposed to people who say they have a migraine when what they really mean is that they have a bad headache!), there are a number of prescription drugs available which treat the cause. Once the tablet or spray has been taken, the migraine goes away within a few hours. Yes, they can be awful and symptoms do vary quite widely; I’ve even had half my body go numb and was totally convinced that I was having a stroke, but the point is that you do recover.
I find it strangely fascinating that all these people seem to have different foreign accents rather than any one in particular. This seems to suggest that there’s an element of choice involved somewhere.
She should be happy, any accent is better than a Plymothian Janner. “Alreet me burd……..Geddon”
I suffer with migraines so this is kind of scary….. Although saying that, I was told by a teacher at school once that I sounded common, so maybe if this ever happened to me I might end up sounding like Joanna Lumley or something!
LC x
sounds to me like shes just attention seeking, she says her step daughter thought she sounded chinese over the phone and since then she has spoken like that, obv she could stop it whenever she wants
This condition is known as “foreigh accent syndrome” and is fairly common.