Woman wakes up with Welsh accent after quitting her job despite never going to Wales
An English woman who woke up one morning with a Welsh accent despite not being Welsh has appealed for help from medical professionals to explain what has happened to her.
Zoe Coles, from Lincolnshire, says that about six weeks ago she started to notice the bizarre change, which went from a German accent to a Welsh one.
She was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) in 2022, but now believes that she might have Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).
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Zoe has never even been to Wales, so it’s understandable that she wants answers.
She said: "It won't go away, I think it's stuck.”
According to Zoe, she’s had to stop her job in a pub because of the accent change.
She added: "I've come away from work because I woke up six weeks ago with this accent.
"At first, it was more like a strong German accent and now I believe it's a Welsh accent."
There are dozens of documented cases of FAS, many of which are associated with neurological issues.
Zoe has also been suffering with chronic pain, loss of motor controls and other speech problems because of her FND, but has now used her TikTok to ask for an expert to come forward and offer some help, having failed to obtain a referral to a specialist.
Zoe told BBC News: "There are many FND sufferers but this accent syndrome... something has obviously gone wrong up in my brain, like something's obviously not right, because who on earth wakes up speaking a totally different accent?
"So I would like to work with somebody [who] can help me and then we can help others."
She admits that since she got her new accent there have been some issues with other people.
Zoe says that she has been made to feel ‘awkward’ when speaking to other people.
Presumably that counts for double when it’s people who know her and her old accent, too.
At first, she said that she had enjoyed having a new twang in her accent, but now has realised that it’s something she needs to change.
Having initially thought that she would ‘get over it’ as it was ‘just a blip’, she is now realising the truth of the situation.
So, she wants an expert to help her, and has appealed on TikTok for any neurologists or other scientists with expertise in the area to give her a hand.
If you’re out there and reading, consider this your signal to get in touch with her.
Tom Wood