Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > funny or what........

[andyb]

A Geordie woman has emerged from a stroke speaking with a Jamaican accent. (Pic: icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk)
Linda Walker, a 60-year-old former university administrator, had suffered a stroke but came round in hospital to discover her distinctive accent had disappeared.
She is said to have a rare case of Foreign Accent Syndrome, where patients wake up speaking differently after suffering brain injury.
She told the Evening Chronicle: "I got very down about it at first. It is so strange because you don't feel like the same person. Not only did I have a stroke but I got lumbered with this foreign accent syndrome as well.
"I didn't realise what I sounded like but then my speech therapist played a tape of me talking. I was just devastated."
Researchers at Oxford University have found that patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome have suffered damage to 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 the Second World War 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.



How strange is that?

[Jools]

Yeah, there's a guy from South London who woke up to find himself talking with a heavy Italian accent.

The way people form words is a very subtle and complex interaction between vocal chords, mouth and tongue and it is sometimes virtually impossible for a non-native speaker to pronounce some words because it requires that you learned these words or sylables as a child (think of the way that the French pronounce the 'r' in the word 'Grenoble' or the way the Dutch pronounce all those 'ch' sounds)

Apparently, the Foreign Accent Syndrome is caused by partial paralysis of the tongue or the mouth which means that you end up sounding like someone that never learned to use those same muscles in the same way in the first place

[andyb]

I must be suufering from it then...i woke up and keep talking &ollocks!

[antonye]

We were watching a program about organ donors and specifically heart transplants the other week. I was suddenly struck by how amazing it is that we have the ability to remove the very core of a human, the one organ that keeps everything going, and replace it with one out of another that has died to keep them alive.

The fact that you can transplant an organ is amazing enough, but to revive a (basically) dead person is incredible.

/deep

Funny old world, innit!

[Annette]

I pitty the bloke who's wandering around with Dave's organs. Bet he's developed a passion for wheelies and wonders why he keeps getting speeding tickets!

[psychlist]

Originally Posted by annette harris

I pitty the bloke who's wandering around with Dave's organs. Bet he's developed a passion for wheelies and wonders why he keeps getting speeding tickets!

Closely followed by an overwhelming ambition to help everyone

[ali]

Originally Posted by annette harris

I pitty the bloke who's wandering around with Dave's organs. Bet he's developed a passion for wheelies and wonders why he keeps getting speeding tickets!

I could've sworn I saw a bloke in the paddock last week, up to his armpits in oil, taking a four-sizes-too-big drill to the side of a perfectly reasonable looking bike, surrounded by bits of plate alloy and a selection of old files with a hint of mechanical madness in his eye...... did make me wonder if he'd been for an op recently!

[Mark]

I wonder if he's suddenly fallen in love with Dukes, and can't hold his drink whilst on flu medication!