UNKNOWN LANGUAGE

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 223, 19 April 1933, Page 3

UNKNOWN LANGUAGE

Woman Speaks in Gaelic

EXPERIENCE UNDER ANAESTHETIC

A woman who did not: know a word of Gaelic spoke the language fluently while under an anaesthetic recently. She is Mrs. Frank Sherrin, of Netherington Grave, London, and her case has baffled doctors ad psychologists. "Once when I was operated on," she said "the nurses and doctor told me I had talked in a strange language while I was unconscious. Many years later Sir William LlcEwan, the famous surgeon, operated on me. Wlien I came round he said, 'You and i must talk Gaelic. I am a great lover of the language,' and he told-.mo that I had been talking fluently about ray personal affairs in Gaelic. I assured him I bad never spoken or learned a word of it. , "My parents were Highlanders, and I was born in the Highlands, but the only time I heard gaelic was for the first few months of my lite, when 1 had a Scottish nurse. I often talk and sing in my sleep, and I am toltt i use a strange language—evidently Gaelic—then." . Even more remarkable is the case of a child of three, named Joan, the daughter of English parents, who as she. learned to talk spoke with a broad Scottish accent and used Scottish words that her parents did not know. The child's mother said: "My mother was a Highland woman, but Jean never saw her. Her nurse is a Gocknev and "Jean has never heard anyone speaking with a Scottish accent.