Member Article

Geordie stroke victim wakes up Jamaican

A Newcastle woman is baffled after waking up after a stroke and speaking with a Jamaican accent instead of her native Geordie. The Evening Chronicle reports that Linda Walker, a former university administrator from Newcastle, is suffering from a case of foreign accent syndrome, where patients wake up speaking differently after suffering a brain injury. Ms Walker said: “I got very down about it at first. It is so strange because you don’t 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.” The syndrome was first identified during the Second World War when a Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel damage to her brain. She developed a German accent, which led to her being ostracised by her community.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .