Croatian Girl Goes into Coma, Wakes Up Fluent in German

Nemotoad Member

Registered: 2010-03-17 Posts: 66

This reminds me of the semi-related story of Andras Toma, who was a POW locked up in a Russian psychiatric hospital for 50 years because no one could understand his gibberish and thought he was crazy. So for 50 years he didn't have a single conversation with anyone, didn't know what was happening in the world, until a visiting doctor to the hospital realised that the "gibberish" that he reportedly spoke was actually the Hungarian language, which is unrelated to the Indo-European family.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q … n13954342/

I've some Hungarian friends and it really does sound like a crazy made up language to hear them speak.

Nesetoru Member

From: 芬蘭 Registered: 2009-12-27 Posts: 122

nest0r wrote:
You'd do better to read up on how multiple languages are processed in the brain than paying attention to vague/anecdotal reporting about miraculous fluency after brain trauma. ;p

Apparently in bilinguals, really interesting cases of aphasia have been found, such as being unable to speak the L1 one day while retaining fluency in L2, but then switching back the next day...

Something like that happens to me all the time. Like when I'm speaking Finnish to my friends and suddenly I can only remember the English equivalent of a Finnish word so I say it instead. Then I'll be like "What's this word in Finnish ?" Cracks me up everytime...

thurd Member

From: Poland Registered: 2009-04-07 Posts: 756

Come on, its XXI century and people still buy this crap?

Nothing like this happened!! These are just stories made by journalists to sell their papers, often exaggerated, even more often downright lying. You understand the scale of it when you become a part of such story.

Show me one case in a scientific journal of some sorts that did a through study of such person with "magical" abilities.

It reminds me about people still buying this "we only use 1-5-10% of our brains omg we must be telepaths" theory. This was created around the 50 or 60ties when we knew shit about how the brain works but despite science going much further in understanding it, people still hold on to this urban legend.
Best part about it is we didn't even have to understand our brain better, to bust this myth back then with just simple logic!! Get your leg in a casket and show me how well you can walk after 3 weeks with deteriorated muscles due to inactivity. Why would brains be different and support an inactive (not used) organ/functionality??

Last edited by thurd (2010 April 14, 6:06 am)

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nest0r Member

Registered: 2007-10-19 Posts: 5236 Website

@thurd - Your hair and fingernails continue growing after you die!

Last edited by nest0r (2010 April 14, 6:38 am)

bodhisamaya Guest

Be open minded, but not so much that your brains fall out. I believe anything imaginable is possible.
...until asked for a donation. Then I become the world's biggest skeptic.

Jarvik7 Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

thurd wrote:
It reminds me about people still buying this "we only use 1-5-10% of our brains omg we must be telepaths" theory. This was created around the 50 or 60ties when we knew shit about how the brain works but despite science going much further in understanding it, people still hold on to this urban legend.

AFAIK that urban myth stems from people misunderstanding the research. The way I read it is that we use only 10% of our brain at any one time, which is a big difference. It's not that we don't use 90% of our brains EVER, it is that at any one time only around 10% is active.

..which may or may not be true. I am not a neuroscientist (IANAN).

thurd Member

From: Poland Registered: 2009-04-07 Posts: 756

Jarvik7 wrote:
thurd wrote:
It reminds me about people still buying this "we only use 1-5-10% of our brains omg we must be telepaths" theory. This was created around the 50 or 60ties when we knew shit about how the brain works but despite science going much further in understanding it, people still hold on to this urban legend.
AFAIK that urban myth stems from people misunderstanding the research. The way I read it is that we use only 10% of our brain at any one time, which is a big difference. It's not that we don't use 90% of our brains EVER, it is that at any one time only around 10% is active.

..which may or may not be true. I am not a neuroscientist (IANAN).

Activity is always there, its just not spiking up on PET scans.

I'm not a neuroscientist either

chamcham Member

Registered: 2005-11-11 Posts: 1444

This story sounds just as bad:

http://kotaku.com/5516743/woman-falls-o … sex-addict

:-)

Nesetoru Member

From: 芬蘭 Registered: 2009-12-27 Posts: 122

chamcham wrote:
This story sounds just as bad:

http://kotaku.com/5516743/woman-falls-o … sex-addict

:-)

Well, that's just... weird.

ta12121 Member

From: Canada Registered: 2009-06-02 Posts: 3190

TaylorSan wrote:
Oh yeah I speak fluent glossolalia. You can too in about 18 months! AGATT -> All glossolalia all the time! Total immersion, pentecostal media environment, and of course, the sentence method in an SRS!

kshadsaihasdohfofkdferiosmcjheokiudkjanvnuhadagagaja!

And that there proves it!

Anyone seen "Jesus Camp"?

怖い

No man, it only takes 18mins to speak fluent glossalalia.

Tobberoth Member

From: Sweden Registered: 2008-08-25 Posts: 3364

Jarvik7 wrote:
thurd wrote:
It reminds me about people still buying this "we only use 1-5-10% of our brains omg we must be telepaths" theory. This was created around the 50 or 60ties when we knew shit about how the brain works but despite science going much further in understanding it, people still hold on to this urban legend.
AFAIK that urban myth stems from people misunderstanding the research. The way I read it is that we use only 10% of our brain at any one time, which is a big difference. It's not that we don't use 90% of our brains EVER, it is that at any one time only around 10% is active.

..which may or may not be true. I am not a neuroscientist (IANAN).

From what I've heard, the idea was that the part we don't "use" in our brain is still used automatically to pump our heart and all that junk. I got the impression that if we actually DID control 100% of our brain, we would kill ourselves by failing to do stuff the body needs to do automatically.

Bokusenou Member

From: America Registered: 2007-01-12 Posts: 820 Website

Reminds me of something I read is a psych class once, about this woman who had an accident which and woke up speaking German. Apparently, L1(language(s) learned as young children) and L2 are stored in different places in the brain. When the place where L1 was stored was damaged beyond repair, she only had L2. She had taken a German class in high school, and even though she had forgotten most of it, part of her brain remembered it, and so she could only speak in (high school-level, I assume) German.

I remember thinking about how I'd taken French (mostly forgotten now) and how creepy it would be if I could only speak in basic French, Japanese would be ok I guess, but basic French...

Hero of Time Member

From: US Registered: 2010-03-16 Posts: 19

If you Google it, you'll find all sorts of different news outlets covering this story, so it's not just one begging for attention.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2 … erman.html

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/mp … nt-german/

http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/Gener … _from_coma

nest0r Member

Registered: 2007-10-19 Posts: 5236 Website

Hero of Time wrote:
If you Google it, you'll find all sorts of different news outlets covering this story, so it's not just one begging for attention.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2 … erman.html

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/mp … nt-german/

http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/Gener … _from_coma

Recyclings of the same vague, anecdotal story. That's simply how online news works now--or rather, Google's aggregations of news makes the process more apparent, with any story. Kind of like reblogging. ;p

Jaunty Member

From: California Registered: 2009-04-13 Posts: 42

There was another article today - this time from a migraine:
Chinese accent after migraine

Apparently this condition is documented as Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) in the literature.

Jarvik7 Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

She sounds more British than Chinese to me. The only "Chinesey" thing is the stereotypical omission of some plural markers and other grammatical elements. Nothing in there was really "accent".

She is simply talking like (imitating) how she thinks Chinese people sound ("ME NO RIKEY FLY LICE!") filtered through her English accent, not like how her unconscious has (supposedly) recorded Chinese people sounding. This is exactly what you'd expect. She didn't unconsciously learn Chinese or pickup a Chinese accent that was switched on/revealed due to some brain damage, the brain damage just makes her imitate Chinese stereotypes without her control.

Anyone who thinks FAS is proof of the mystical powers of the brain regarding language isn't understanding the disease. It's no more impressive than someone intentionally talking like a pirate* - there is just the loss of control. Studies of aphasias are much more interesting.

*I hope that if I ever get FAS, I end up talking like a pirate. yarrrgh

There is also the possibility that she actually has a mild case of Broca's aphasia causing impacted grammar, and the supposed "Chinese accent" (which I don't hear over the British) is something she is doing psychologically on top of that after the ambulance crew member mentioned it. In this case it wouldn't be FAS at all.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2010 April 20, 1:51 pm)

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