An English woman who woke up with a Welsh accent — despite never visiting the country — is pleading for help to get her voice back.
Zoe Coles, 36, fears the distinctive accent is ‘stuck’ and won’t disappear after she developed the voice overnight in June 2023.
The mother-of-two, of Stamford in Lincolnshire, is often asked if she’s from Cardiff and can now roll her Rs.
Ms Coles, a former bartender, now gets ‘anxious’ whenever she leaves home as she feels like she ‘doesn’t fit in any more’ because of her new voice.
She believes she has the extraordinarily rare foreign accent syndrome (FAS). There have only been around 150 cases documented worldwide since its first mention in 1907.
It is usually the result of a head or brain injury, with strokes being the most common cause.
FAS can also occur after trauma to the brain, bleeding in the brain or a brain tumour.
Other causes reported in medical journals include multiple sclerosis and conversion disorder.
Ms Coles, who also has functional neurological disorder (FND), says that her accent returns ‘back to English’ when she has bad flare-ups.
She said: ‘When I am having a bad flare-up and I can’t walk my old accent will return back to English.
‘I have no idea why because it is so rare not much is known about it.’
Ms Coles, who originally developed a German accent before it morphed into Welsh, added: ‘I am struggling a lot, you are born with a voice, you grow up and develop a way of speaking.
‘That has been taken away from me.
‘Even though it has given me a confidence boost, I would love everything to go away and life to go back to normal.’
FND relates to a problem with how the brain receives and sends information to the rest of the body.
Some patients can suffer limb weakness, seizures, walking difficulties, twitching and sensory issues, according to charity FND Action.
One study has suggested that foreign accent syndrome may ‘sometimes represent an FND’.
In videos shared on her TikTok account @zoecoles1, she revealed that FND leaves her in chronic pain and sometimes makes it impossible to talk and walk.
She explained she often experience ticks, memory problems, slurred speech and pain in her legs.
She said: ‘I was a full-time working mum, I could get up and clean the house in two hours, have a shower, get ready, go shopping, go to work and come home.
‘Now I have to be assisted in the shower in case my legs go on me, I can’t do the house work in two hours it is more like two days.
‘I get so tired so quickly, I can do the shopping because I can hold the trolley but I can’t do much more.
‘It completely wipes me out.’
Speaking about her accent, Ms Coles said: ‘Part of me has learned to get on with it but I have come across a few Welsh people who asked me where I am from.
‘That is really difficult, I don’t want to lie and say I am from somewhere in Wales.
‘I have no clue about Wales, I have never been.’
Ms Coles has seen a neurologist and has been told there is nothing they can do.
She said: ‘I want to raise awareness and show that this is real life.
‘I am speaking out because I want people to see that these things really do happen.
‘This is a reality for me as much as I don’t like it, I love the accent and I have adapted to it.
‘However it still causes problems for me, I still get head pains and tingling in the face.
‘It isn’t just the accent, it is so hard for me.’
