An English woman who woke up with a Welsh accent despite never visiting the country said she wants her old voice back.
Zoe Coles, 36, developed the new accent overnight in June 2023 but thought it would eventually wear off. However, it still hasn’t, and the mom-of-two is often asked if she’s from Cardiff, Wales, when she actually lives in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England.
Ms. Coles says she’s never been able to do a Welsh accent or roll her R’s, until now—and gets “anxious” when leaving the house as she feels like she “doesn’t fit in anymore” because of her new voice.
In January 2022, Ms. Coles was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a condition where there is a problem with how the brain sends and receives signals. She now thinks she’s also developed Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS)—a rare condition where people develop speech patterns that are perceived as a foreign accent.
Nine months on, Ms. Coles said she wants her old accent back and life to return to normal.
Ms. Coles, a former bartender, said: “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. I would love my old accent back—but there is a concern that my FND will get worse if it returns.”
She says she often has memory problems, slurred speech, and pain in her legs because of FND.
“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,” she said. “Now I have to be assisted in the shower in case my legs go on me, I can’t do the housework 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.”
Ms. Coles said that when she has a bad FND flare her old accent will come back, but her speech is stuttered and slurred.
“Some days I will go natural, and I am fine,” 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.
“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.
“I want to raise awareness and show that this is real life,” she said. "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.”
