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A woman has told how she lost her typical American accent and now speaks with a SCOTTISH twang after developing a rare medical condition.

Linda Pereira, 50, from Atlanta, Georgia, has only ever travelled abroad twice but is regularly mistaken for being from the UK.



The mother-of-three, originally from San Jose, California, was diagnosed with ultra rare Foreign Accent Syndrome after feeling an eruption in her brain while messaging a friend on Facebook in October last year.



She has also been mistaken as being from Sweden, Germany and South Africa.

(Image: PA)

Linda, who has documented the changes on her YouTube channel, said she was pleased about her new accents.



Describing the moment she lost her Californian drawl, she said: "My family went out and I was on Facebook talking to a friend.



"It was a rather complex topic, and in trying to reply, I felt extremely tired and could barely keep my eyes open.



"I decided to lie down, but this didn't help, and I felt a weird pressure in my brain I hadn't felt before.



"It was a ball, and as I typed, my eyes and brain seemed to fuzz in and out.



"I thought it was a result of trying to think too hard, so I went over to something funny on Facebook with one of my friends and I started to type a reply, when I felt a ball erupt and an electrical eruption moved throughout my entire brain.



"I couldn't move and couldn't open my mouth."

(Image: PA)

The former computer repairer was alone until her computer engineer husband Phil, 55, returned home two-and-a-half-hours later.



Paralysed, she could only blink frantically to get his attention and communicate that something was terribly wrong.



"All I was thinking is 'What am I going to do?," the grandmother-of-two said.



"When my husband came home, he thought I was just having a rest and it took him half-an-hour to finally realise I couldn't answer him."



After about an hour of being unable to open her mouth, Linda was finally able to take some medication to calm her down.

(Image: PA)

Later that night, she recorded her voice to hear how she sounded so she could work out what had happened - but it was not until the next day she noticed the strange change.



"My husband thought I sounded British and said sometimes he couldn't understand me, but I thought it was more Swedish or German," she said.



Two days later, her physiologist and neurologist diagnosed her with Foreign Accent Syndrome, which affects just 60 people worldwide.



Now, her voice interchanges between the Scandinavian sounds, German and sometimes switches to a Scottish or South African-twang.

(Image: PA)

Linda says her family cannot believe how differently she speaks - and even gets better service in restaurants and shops because staff think she is a tourist.



She entertains her family with impersonations from the Disney film Frozen and confuses her mother-in-law who asks her to stop doing the "silly accent."



But Linda says she does miss her Californian tones.



"At first we all thought it was funny," she said. "We had a good time with it but I was always thinking it was temporary and going to go away.

(Image: PA)

"Now, this is how I know myself and I know it doesn't sound like me."



The syndrome usually results from a stroke, but can also develop from head trauma, migraines or developmental problems.



It is unclear what exactly caused Linda's condition.



She has suffered slight changes in her speech since 2000, thought to be due to a contraceptive pill.



She was also diagnosed Tardive Akathisia and Functional Neurological Disorder in June last year which means she suffers with non-epileptic seizures and unclear speech.

Read more:The woman who woke up speaking Italian