Sarah Colwill suffers from migraines. While that’s not exactly unusual, they have left her with a Chinese accent. Doctors says she has Foreign Accent Syndrome, a very rare condition
Migraines can leave you speechless with pain. But Sarah Colwill has experienced a much more unusual vocal effect — she now speaks with a Chinese accent.
The disturbing impact of a chronic migraine has left her voice unrecognisable to family and friends.
Doctors say she has Foreign Accent Syndrome, a condition which damages the part of the brain that controls speech and word formation, Daily Mail reports.
It is so rare, there are only 60 recorded cases in the world. Mrs Colwill, 35, is baffled by the effects and fears she may never regain her normal pronunciation and tone of voice.
She said the change happened after she had such an extreme headache last month that she called for an ambulance. Paramedics said her voice sounded strange and when she arrived at hospital she realised she was speaking like a Chinese woman.
The IT project manager, who was born in Germany but has lived in Plymouth since she was a child, is having speech therapy to try to revert to her Devon accent. Mrs Colwill said she had no idea why she had picked up the Far Eastern speech pattern.
“I have never been to China. 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’ve always spoken like a local. But following one attack an ambulance crew said I 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. To think I am stuck with this accent is getting me down,” she lamented.
Mrs Colwill has suffered severe headaches for a decade but this year was diagnosed as having rare sporadic hemiplegic migraines.
The condition causes blood vessels in the brain to expand, resulting in stroke-like symptoms such as paralysis on one side of the body.
Others who suffer FAS: BBC World Service broadcaster Anne Bristow-Kitney whose crisp English tones were replaced by a broad Scottish accent after she suffered a stroke and brain haemorrhage in 1996
Wendy Hasnip, a special needs teacher from Yorkshire began speaking in a French accent
after a stroke in 1999
Lynda Walker, a university administrator, born in Newcastle Upon Tyne woke up after a stroke to find her Geordie twang replaced by a Jamaican accent
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