Englishman wakes from coma speaking Welsh, forgetting English

An Englishman who suffered a stroke discovered he could only speak Welsh when he regained consciousness.

Alun Morgan, 81, had only briefly come into contact with Welsh decades before but it replaced his native tongue after the stroke, said the Daily Mail.

Morgan moved to Wales when he was 12 in 1944 during the Second World War.

He spent a year there before returning home to London after the war in 1945.

Doctors diagnosed Morgan with a condition known as aphasia, a type of brain damage that shifts the brain language center, said the Telegraph.

Other sufferers of the condition have sometimes found themselves speaking their language with foreign accents.

It is believe that the stroke unlocked Morgan's hidden knowledge of Welsh that he had stored away.

After being hospitalized for weeks after the stroke, he began receiving therapy to remember English.

“I was born in 1931 and when the war came I was sent down to Wales as an evacuee," he said, speaking in Welsh, according to the Independent.

"It gave my wife the shock of her life when I started speaking Welsh. After the stroke it was hard going." 

Morgan says that his English is coming back while his Welsh is once again fading to distant memory.

"I’ve managed to remember English but I’ve almost forgotten Welsh again.”