'Foreign Accent Syndrome'

Updated: 12:08, Tuesday July 04, 2006


A Geordie stroke victim woke from a coma speaking like a Jamaican islander.
Lynda Walker spent all 60 years of her life with a thick Geordie accent - but she now suffers from "foreign accent syndrome".
She had lived in Canada for a short time but returned to the North East, never having lost her twang.
But when she regained consciousness after a stroke in March last year, her family and friends were convinced she sounded like she was speaking Jamaican patois.
Mrs Walker told The Times: "I got very down about it at first. It was so strange because you do not feel like the same person.
"I didn't realise what I sounded like but then my speech therapist played a tape of me talking. I was just devastated."
There have only ever been 50 recorded cases of the condition and researchers at Newcastle University are now studying Mrs Walker.
She told the paper: "It is like losing a big part of your identity."


http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...531378,00.html