Speaking in tongues

The waiting and sheer anticipation can be most frustrating.

No matter how much the clock is watched it will not move a nano-second faster. I find it both fascinating and exasperating that the more enjoyable the task or experience the quicker time seems to fly and conversely the more unpleasant, then how the hours and minutes drag on by.

This must just be a deep rooted physiological and mental mechanism of the human brain to help us cope with the highs and lows of modern life and experiences.

In moments of extreme trauma and stress the brain can perform miracles motivating what can be an injured, a flagging and frail form to acheive great heroics or feats of endurance or equally just shut down, both serving as a failsafe setting against potential significant harm or longer term damage.

One manifestation of the intricacies of the brain is the phenomena of Foreign Accent Syndrome. This is where an injury, allergic reaction or even a severe migraine has left the sufferer with a distinct change in their linguistic accent which appears to be irreversible.

One of the first of an extremely low incidence of such cases was recorded in Norway in 1941. A civilian woman was injured by shrapnel in an air raid and upon recovering consciousness began to converse with a German accent. Given the occupation of her country at the time this unfortunate side effect led to her being shunned by her friends and acquaintances.

A lady in her fifties in the United States spoke with a precise English accent after a stroke even though she had no associations or ancestral links which could otherwise have been considered as a subconscious influence on her condition.

An adverse reaction to an Iodine tracer in connection with a chest scan resulted in another American lady speaking with a distinctive Russian or Eastern European accent. This did moderate with her slow recovery but returned after a relapse. The variation in her condition presented the University of Texas with a unique research project and they were able to capture on tape the various phases of her voice migration through those dialects.

A lady from the north east of England  began to speak in what was described as a mixture of dialects from Jamaican through to French Canadian and even heard as Italian or Slovak after a stroke. She did the rounds of the media including that essential interview with Richard and Judy on daytime TV.

One of the most recent of the very rare cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome was also in the UK with a  lady from Devon recovering from a migraine and finding that she had developed a distinctly Chinese accent.

The condition is most distressing and debilitating. The impact on the life of an individual is not just on medical and broader wellbeing grounds but in how their family, friends and acquaintances are able to, themselves, cope with the transformational change in their spoken voice.

The case histories do indicate a degree of prejudice emerging with the new found accents and dialects but present the Scientific, Medical and Sociological world with a unique opportunity to observe and comprehend a small aspect of the mysteries of the human brain.