In English in the morning, in German in the afternoon: falling off a bicycle made a woman speak two languages
'26.10.2018'
Source: Air force
Hannah Jenkins speaks English in the morning and German in the afternoon. It's not a whim or a deliberate choice, but this is how her brain works. It all started after falling during a bike ride.
Andrew Wild was in the middle of his mountain climb in the US state of Montana when he received an incomprehensible message from his girlfriend Hannah. He understood only two words "dog" and "hospital", but immediately instinctively felt that something had happened.
The message was in German, the language Hannah grew up with, but Andrew practically didn’t know it. They always spoke only in English.
When this happened, Hannah was in Britain, where she had her own dog training school in Wokingham, and Andrew went to the USA for training before international shooting competitions.
Andrew called Hannah on her cell, but she didn’t answer. The anxiety grew, and he began calling the hospitals in the county of Berkshire, but he never learned anything. He understood that he needed to return home.
Andrew rushed to the airport, not even imagining what awaits him upon his return.
The last thing he expected was to meet a completely different Hannah — not the one that had kissed him goodbye a few days ago.
The day before Hannah sent a message to Andrew, she was riding a bike through the park near her home. She turned a familiar corner and ran into another cyclist.
She remembers little about what the doctors told her about what happened: the second cyclist saw that she was lying motionless, bleeding to death, and called for a rescue service.
He waited for help, said that he was driving at a speed not exceeding 32 km / h, and then left, leaving no more information.
For a woman who was identified as Hanna Jenkins by the contents of her wallet, she had to call a helicopter.
Doctors were not sure if they could save her.
In the hospital
When Hannah finally came to her senses, she found herself at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, not understanding where she was, what had happened, and why, as she thought, no one around had spoken English.
“I didn't understand anything. She says. “I felt as if I had woken up in another country, I could not understand why people didn’t speak to me in such a way that I could understand them.”
The doctor spoke to her in an unknown language. Eventually she understood what the words name and date of birth meant and repeated this information to everyone. It seems like it was right.
The doctors at the Royal Berkshire Hospital were at a loss. All documents of the patient indicated that she lives and works in the UK. They knew her name was Hann Jenkins, but she did not understand English.
The doctors turned to the sister of the mysterious patient Margaret and asked her to talk to Hannah.
Hannah had many questions for Margaret, the main one being why the doctors do not speak English.
“They say Hannah,” the sister replied.
It turned out that as a result of a fall from a bicycle, English completely disappeared from Hannah’s consciousness.
Hanne was left with German, which she learned as a child - with her sister she began to speak in German.
“The doctors didn't know that I could speak German. Hannah explains. "They only realized this when they talked to my sister."
The sisters grew up in the UK and were equally fluent in both languages, their parents are polyglots. Mom, an Austrian, knew four languages, and English dad, a language teacher, spoke seven languages at once.
“German was my first language. In our house there was a rule: always speak German with each other, so as not to forget the language. "
“I couldn’t realize that English was being spoken at the hospital. My brain has lost the ability to understand this. ”
According to neurosurgeon consultant Colin Schiff, who also works in the charity fund to support people with Headway brain injuries, Hannah experienced a so-called loss of a second language.
“Our brains are very sensitive and anything that can disrupt this supercomputer can also affect speech. There is no algorithm to determine how a particular injury will affect the loss of German nouns or English grammar, but we can lose this information, ”says Schiff.
According to the neurosurgeon, after an injury, the best chances are restoration of skills acquired in childhood: the ability to say “yes” and “no” or repeat a nursery rhyme.
Why did Hannah forget her tongue?
- The frontal and temporal lobes of the brain are responsible for speech and language skills.
- The trauma of these plots can affect a person’s speech, vocabulary, colloquial speech and the construction of phrases. Some people can not freely communicate in their native language after such injuries.
- Sometimes a person who was fluent in two languages before an injury completely loses knowledge of one of them after it.
Hannah was not physically injured as a result of the accident - she injured her leg and shoulder, so she was discharged a few days later.
With the help of her sister, who acted as a translator, Hannah learned that she had significant brain damage, and it might take years, rather than months, to improve the situation.
Hannah went home to wait for Andrew.
“I've listened to a lot of radio. I don’t know how much I understood, but when Andrew arrived, I realized how much my knowledge of the language suffered. ”
By that time, they had been together for eight years, but Hannah didn’t understand Andrew, and his German at the secondary school level didn’t help communication much.
They decided to use gestures and their own version of the language of the deaf-and-dumb. As time went on, Hannah’s written English improved at a faster rate than conversational.
“When the conversation completely stopped sticking, we wrote each other notes, emails, text messages, even when we were in the same room,” says Hannah. “This could not but affect my relationship with Andrew, because sometimes we could not really talk due to fatigue or stress. It was not always easy to be patient in such a situation. But I really couldn't have done it without him. ”
Andrew went on unpaid family leave for a year and a half to help Hannah. Little by little she managed to recover most of her knowledge of English, but even now, three years later, her skills have not returned completely.
Now English has become her second language.
“In the morning I'm fine, but in the afternoon I get tired and start thinking in German. I write myself little notes in German, practically turning off the part of my brain that is responsible for communication, so that in the evening, when Andy returns, I can communicate again. ”
Pare also had to get used to the idea that Hannah’s identity had most likely changed after the accident. She was told that as a result of what had happened, she might never be the same again as before.
“This is the hardest part. You need to experience something similar to the bitterness of the loss of a loved one and say goodbye to your former self before you start to recognize yourself as a new one, ”explains Hannah.
Hannah noticed a change in her character, she is no longer as patient and restrained as before, and this forced her to close her own dog training and training school.
Now she is engaged in photography and art - what she taught at the university, and is also mastering a new sport for herself that helps to improve concentration - shooting.
The 2015 crash in October changed the life, language, personality of Hannah, but this is what she learned to adapt to.
“From a psychological point of view, I need to adjust to what I am now,” says Hanna. "And there is no reason why I could not continue to live on as I am now."
