A woman who had spoken with a Geordie accent all her life woke up after a stroke to find herself speaking like a Jamaican. Linda Walker, from Fenham in Newcastle, has Foreign Accent Syndrome, which causes some patients who have suffered brain injury to change the way they speak.

The 60-year-old former university administrator, told the local Evening Chronicle: "I got very down about it at first. It is so strange because you don't feel like the same person. Not only did I have a stroke, but I got lumbered with this foreign accent syndrome as well. I didn't realise what I sounded like, but then my speech therapist played a tape of me talking. I was just devastated."

Although Ms Walker appears to have a Jamaican accent when speaking on the telephone, other people think it sounds more eastern European.

Researchers at Oxford University have found that patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome have suffered damage to tiny areas of the brain that affect speech. The result is often a drawing out or clipping of the vowels that mimic the accent of a particular country, such as Spain or France, even if the sufferer has limited exposure to that accent.

The syndrome was first identified during the second world war when a Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel damage to her brain and developed a strong German accent. She was ostracised by locals.

Dr Nick Miller, a senior lecturer in speech language science at Newcastle University, said the condition was not as rare as people believed. "I probably come across four or five cases a year," he said.

"The accent varies from ear to ear. Two people could hear the same accent and one would say it was Jamaican and the other would say it was East European.

"At our clinic we offer speech therapy and rehabilitation to patients, which can help people come to terms with the condition," Dr Miller said.