MIGRAINE ATTACK GIVES ENGLISH WOMAN A CHINESE ACCENT !!!!

[Daanyeer]

By Luke Salkeld
19th April 2010


Anyone who suffers migraines will know the pain can leave you speechless.

But Sarah Colwill has suffered a much more unusual vocal effect which has left her speaking with a Chinese accent.
The disturbing impact of a chronic migraine has left the 35-year-old's voice unrecognisable to friends and family.
Doctors say she is suffering from Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS), a rare condition which damages the part of the brain which controls speech and word formation.
Mrs Colwill is baffled by the effects and fears she may never regain her normal pronunciation and tone of voice.
Yesterday she explained how the vocal change came after she suffered such an extreme headache last month that she called for an ambulance.
Paramedics who treated her commented that her voice sounded strange and when she arrived at hospital she realised she was speaking like a Chinese woman.
The IT project manager is undergoing speech therapy in a bid to revert to her familiar West Country accent.
Mrs Colwill, who was born in Germany but has lived in Plymouth, Devon, since she was a child, says she has no idea why she has picked up the Far Eastern speech pattern.
She said: 'I have never been to China. It is very frustrating and I just want my own voice back but I don't know if I ever will.
'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.
'I spoke to my step-daughter 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'm having speech therapy but I don't know if the Chinese accent is ever going to go away.'
Mrs Colwill, who has two step-daughters, has suffered severe headaches for a decade but was diagnosed rare sporadic hemiplegic migraines earlier this year.
The condition causes blood vessels in the brain to expand, resulting in stroke-like symptoms such as paralysis down one side of the body.
The effects normally last for around seven days but Mrs Colwill suffered several migraine attacks at once, culminating with an excruciating attack on March 20 which caused the brain damage.
Mrs Colwill, who lives with her husband Patrick, 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.'
She hopes that by speaking out about her condition it will be became better understood, and has been contacted by Professor John Coleman, a phonetics expert at Oxford University, who wants to study her condition.

He researches FAS, of which there are fewer than 60 recorded cases in the world, describing it as a 'complex' condition that causes the voice to change its intonation and emphasis.

He added that the disorder is thought to be caused by strokes and brain injuries but the condition is so rare there is limited research into why it happens.

Professor Coleman said: 'FAS is extremely diverse, and is almost certainly not caused by one thing.

'It is not a well-defined medical phenomenon and therefore not the kind of problem that there are any easy generalisations about.'

Previous sufferers include a Scottish woman who developed a South African accent in 1997, and a 46-year-old American who began speaking in a French accent following a car crash.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z0lYbPRlxD

[Basra-]

istaqfurulah. I rather have an indian accent.

[eyes-only]

[IRONm@N]

It exist, our brains have all the languages in the world stored in it, and it only uses the language it needs and discards, but when you have brain injury or something else, your brain mixes the sensors, and something exciting could happen.
there are some ppl that can test words and numbers and see their colors.