Posted on 07/04/2006 6:29:44 AM PDT by Marius3188
A woman spoke of her distress yesterday at emerging from a stroke to find that her Geordie accent had been transformed into a Jamaican one.
Linda Walker, 60, is one of only 50 people to have been recorded as suffering from foreign accent syndrome. She is now helping researchers from Newcastle University in the hope that they can find a cure for future sufferers.
The condition occurs when patients wake up after a brain injury. In Mrs Walker's case it appeared as she regained consciousness from a stroke in March.
She failed to realise the extent of the transformation of her voice until her speech therapist played her a tape.
"I was devastated," said Mrs Walker. "I don't sound like me. It is so strange because you don't feel the same person. Not only did I have a stroke but I got lumbered with this foreign accent syndrome as well."
There is nothing in Mrs Walker's history to indicate why she should now have an accent that some hear as Jamaican and others as an Eastern European dialect.
She was brought up in the Westerhope area of Newcastle and now lives a short distance away in Fenham. She lived for a brief period of time in Canada.
After four months of speech therapy she is beginning to despair of recovering her native accent.
She said: "I want my own voice back. It's like losing a big part of your identity. You don't feel like the same person any more."
Frauke Buerk, Mrs Walker's speech therapist, said: "Although Linda has improved it looks likely that she will be left with an accent."
Foreign accent syndrome was first discovered in Norway in 1941 when a young woman started to speak with a German accent after an air raid.
Imagine waking up with a gay-lisp?
Wonder if her nurse was Jamaican?
Obeah!!
All right; what's a "Geordie" accent?
There's no way a stroke could be powerful enough to conquer my Texas drawl.
"foreign accent syndrome"
You have got to be kidding me.
Must be like that African-American draft dodger from Georgia who went to England in the 60's and now sounds like the Queen's nephew.
Ya mon.
Like AlGore addressing the congregation at a Baptist Church.
Leni
(.....by the way, what's a Geordie accent?)
I think there are worse things that could happen after a stroke.
Geordies are residents of north-east England, particularly around Newcastle Upon Tyne. They are the nearest major English city to Scotland and have a reputation for being tough and hard-drinking men. They have a spectacularly impenetrable accent.
http://www.geordie.co.uk/dictionary/l.htm
Noo hadaway 'n shite ya friggas!!!!!!
She also woke up with dreadlocks and a craving for ganja.
Not to mention she can't stop singing "Don't Worry! Be Happy!"
Vedy vedy intadesting, mon!
You speak like you have a hair barret across your eyes. 
I think it's interesting that when people are around a certain accent for awhile, they morph their own speech to mimic that accent.
Heck, I'm sounding like Cheech Marin more and more everyday.
God smiled on her that she recovered so fully as the only side effect was the accent with her speech. I hope people will fogive me if I point out that along with the obvious miracle of her recovery someone upstairs has a sense of humor.
"We're sending her back, Ted, it's not her time yet."
"Oh, one of the lucky ones. No major physiological problems. Hey Bob..."
"What Ted?..."
"Let's change the accent...What have you got in the files under 'Marley'..."
The accent is hard to understand - lots of broad vowels and submerged consonants - and the stereotypical Geordie is a tough working-class type.
Here's somebody who purports to explain it all. You can even listen to the accent.
Jamaican Accent? Sounds like voodoo to me.
Geordie is a distinctive accent characteristic of one small area of Britain.
I worked in the Fire Department in DC and after 25 years I woke up with an ebonics accent I am trying hard now to get rid of.
In England I tend to talk like the taxi drivers, not the Queen.
A Cuban friend once said in annoyance, "Help me! Don't mock me!" I replied, "I'm not mocking you; I can't help it." Among Mexicans, the same friend muttered softly to me, "These people are going to get very mad if you don't stop imitating their accents."
Then there was the trip to Charleston...
I think Woody Allen had something like this in mind when he made Zelig.
Ooooo, you beat me to it!
"'In England I tend to talk like the taxi drivers, not the Queen.
A Cuban friend once said in annoyance, "Help me! Don't mock me!" I replied, "I'm not mocking you; I can't help it." Among Mexicans, the same friend muttered softly to me, "These people are going to get very mad if you don't stop imitating their accents."
Then there was the trip to Charleston..."
If all that's true, I'm not going to San Francisco. . . . . . ;-)
ROTFLOL. That is so funny. I suppose that could cause a problem. Sometimes I get confused with my language because on weekends and sometimes during the week when the riverboats dock, I do a re-enactment character, Maggie O'Brian Uhel, who has a decided Irish brogue. Maggie escapes ever so often at inappropriate times. She's a bit o mischif, aye she is.
"...Geordies are residents of north-east England, particularly around Newcastle Upon Tyne. They are the nearest major English city to Scotland..."
WHAT? What about Carlisle???? :)
You're evil. ;OD
I saw the same thing when Solomon Ortiz went to Washington. He spoke Spanish (and extremely poor English) here but when he got to Washington, he spoke English! It was amazing!
However, when he comes back to South Texas he has an unfortunate relapse to speaking in Spanish and extremely poor English. It simply drives me crazy...Why?
I know that it can't be pandering to his voters. Could it?
Once I woke up with foreign accent syndrome, restless leg syndrome and irritable bowel syndrome! I kicked my own ass and shouted unintelligible epithets!
Have a very good friend; lives in the Detroit area. He has a buddy who's Iranian. I swear every time he talks to him, he seems to slip into some nonsensical, pseudo-Iranian 'accent' that friggin' drives me up the wall. I'm not even sure he knows that he does it.........
Don't apologize. It's exactly what I needed today.
The two best examples I know of Geordies are Jack and Bobby Charlton.
Ted Kennedy looks like he is due for a stroke and a accent change.
GMTA
It's the same way with Democrat Pols. They have Masters Degrees in Political Science, but on the hustings they say "goin, comin, eatin, drinkin," ad-nauseum. Then when boob bait for Bubbah's time is over, they revert to the elitist slime they really are.
Jamaican eh?
Well at least she will now have a better chance of being understood - - -
and Im Glaswegian!
Talk about elitist slime, I saw a B/W film of John Kerry when he was at Yale. The nasal, self affected Boston Brahman tone he had made Prince Charles sound like a chimney sweep.... Maybe he's had a brain injury too, thats why he flip-flop flubs and has no spine, or accomplishments.
Foreign Accent Syndrome ping
"Can I get me a huntin' license here?" 
Hell, I've about learned the lyrics of an entire la musica Ranchera eight-track that belongs to some neighborhood-entertaining clown down the street.
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