'Brain injury' woman develops Chinese accentRSS Feed

A woman apparently with a form of brain injury has surprised herself and her loved ones by starting to speak with a Chinese accent.

Sarah Colwill, who has never visited the Asian country, is thought to have Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).

The 35-year-old has been suffering from severe migraines for approximately ten years and has been diagnosed with rare sporadic hemiplegic migraines, which can cause the blood vessels in her brain to expand, resulting in stroke symptoms that usually last for around a week at a time.

Ms Colwill, who has lived in Plymouth since she was 18 months old, said: "The first few weeks it was quite funny but … my voice has started to annoy me now. It is not my voice."

It's not the first time this year that someone with FAS has appeared in the news headlines: Tom Paterson of Largs in Ayrshire told the Evening Times that he woke up from a six-week coma speaking with a hard-to-place European accent unlike his native Scottish twang.

"All my life I've been Tom from Largs and now people think I'm Tomasz from Poland," he said.

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