"Stroke gives woman British accent" - doesn't this prove reincarnation?

[laura888]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3235934.stm

haven't seen this posted, but it may have:

<snip>
"An American woman has been left with a British accent after having a stroke.
This is despite the fact that Tiffany Roberts, 61, has never been to Britain. Her accent is a mixture of English cockney and West Country."
</snip>

The article states that a stroke can cause someone to slur their speech and it sounds like an accent.

I disagree. if this was the case, wouldn't someone have an accent when under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

I think that a stroke might bring to the surface some hidden part of the brain that comes with us when we are born.

[DinkyDem]

1. I'm afraid that

Howard Dean proves reincarnation. And George McGovern isn't even dead yet!

:eyes:

[Djinn]

2. no

it prooves we know sweet FA about the functioning of the brain, I'm no neurologist but people have experienced weirder things after physical trauma that are all explainable - see "the man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Oliver Sacks

[Blade]

3. I think it's hokey...

strokes damage the brain, thus causing speech impediments.

I find this to be a coincidence.

[KittyWampus]

4. We Had A Woman Work With Us That Had Same Exact Thing Happen

she was American born and raised but spoke with a British accent after having a stroke.

I do believe in reincarnation (conservation of Energy) but don't know whether this can be explained by muscle control and how that effects our proununciation of vowels... thus making things "sound" British.

Does the Queens English require greater or lesser muscle control?

I was always under the impression that Americans are "lazy" with their vowels.

[DinkyDem]

11. nope

It is the British who are lazy with vowels to the point of mumbling, or conversely, Americans over enunciate vowels. The British love to make fun of our 'A's and 'Uh's.

[soleft]

19. But even if energy from a human body transforms after death

by what mechanism do you think would cause it to then re-manifest itself in another human body, as oppose dispersing or being reabsorbed in other manifestations.

[enki23]

5. absolutely.

reincarnation is the only possible explanation.

[Deja Q]

6. Has she watched a single British TV show or listened to a UK radio program

If so, that's the clue we need.

I grew up watching British TV shows (on PBS, naturally) and had quite an accent for a while.

[PVnRT]

7. Not even close

She could very well just be imitating an accent she heard in a movie or on TV. While other parts of the brain may be activated, it's only the parts that are causing her to talk like that.

[kodi]

8. no, but it proves god is an englishman

many of us thought so, but this clarifies it.

[laura888]

10. the story also sited a Norwegian person speaking with German accent

this person was then severly ostracized...

[kodi]

13. considering what happened to norway in wwii, little wonder

.

[soothsayer]

9. doesn't it prove that the british are brain damaged? oh, tony blair

proves that!

(kidding!)

[cliss]

12. Very interesting article,

thanks for the link. Well, I guess it would be one thing for someone to have a stroke and then start talking again with a British accent. But the mix of "Cockney and West Country" is a little harder to explain. That's a very specific locational accent.

Now, if she were to refer to places in those areas that she remembered or was familiar with; then I'd be a believer. Or maybe some people that she suddenly remembers.

Interesting.

[AlienGirl]

14. Interesting question about reincarnation...

If it were ever proven to exist, what would be the legal and social ramifications? Could you set up a bank account that you'd "inherit" in each incarnation, increasing your wealth over centuries instead of decades? Would people be liable for wrongs they did long before their current birth? Would suicide suddenly become as acceptible as rebooting a computer that's frozen up? Would anyone still support the death penalty?

Oh, the can of worms absolute proof would open...

Tucker

[Interrobang]

15. No, it just demonstrates...

...that an impediment to brain function can do some weird things to your speech.

I'm surprised that you should mention people having accents while under the influence of drugs/alcohol. Haven't you ever observed that? I have one friend who actually is from Colchester, in England, and when he's drunk, he sounds like he's from the Bronx. It's a *radical* change in his accent.

I have another friend who sounds like she's on the BBC every day, even though she was born and raised in Canada, but depending on whom she's talking to, where she's been, or what she's doing, her accent changes quite a bit. Sometimes she sounds BBC standard, sometimes she sounds upper-class English, sometimes she sounds Welsh.

Accents are funny, malleable things. Put me in a room with a bunch of New Yorkers, and I'll either start sounding English (overcompensating and hypercorrecting), or I'll sound like I was born in Manhattan, all within a very short time. The same thing happens to me when I'm around people from the US south (and I'm from southern Ontario, which has a natural accent kind of like a cross between Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Southern California) -- I either start to drawl, or speak in a clipped, British accent.

Before you start blaming things on paranormal or supernatural causes, you should look into some of the actual, falsifiable, natural causes. In this case, if you care enough, looking into cognitive science and linguistics would be a good idea, possibly more linguistics than otherwise, I don't know. In my opinion, people who automatically assume something that they don't understand is parnormal or supernatural sound really ignorant. But I'm quite a hardened sceptic, so I'm rather inclined to feel that way.

[AlienGirl]

24. Alcohol and accents and reincarnation

I know some people who develop accents when they're drunk or simply overtired. However, these people also believe in reincarnation and have apparent past-life recall, and the accents jibe with the language they seem to have spoken before--and interestingly, with regional variations of that language consistent with their past selves' hometowns.

It doesn't prove anything, of course. I doubt there could ever be sufficient evidence to *prove* reincarnation to skeptics.

Tucker

[letthewindblow]

16. None of those

"supernatural" things can be proven. Science does not allow that.

[JackSwift]

17. No, it proves the mathematical Reinmann hypothesis

because now that she speaks with a mix of two English accents, she must be a closet mathematician working in garage fixing manifolds. People eating hot dogs on the same day you see a Daucshund proves reincarnation.

[Loonman]

18. Uhh....no

The human mind is an amazing thing.

[soleft]

20. Maybe she has anglophilitis

which is caused after repeated viewings of Keeping Up Appearances, The Vicor of Dibly, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Prime Suspect Part V.

[Robb]

21. Damndest thing...

...This dorky kid in my high school went to London for a week with his parents, came back with an "English" accent. Claimed he just couldn't control it. :eyes:

[Loonman]

22. Maybe he reincarnated when he was there!!!

LOL....no.

[JackSwift]

23. No, he learned some math while he was there

worked on a car and ate bangers. Jeez, people.

[southpaw72]

25. british pop stars sound american when they sing

... just more proof of reincarnation.

[JackSwift]

26. Were they former math professors

or auto mechanics?

[Liberal Veteran]

27. I'd be more impressed if she spoke latin afterwards....

...or aramaic.