just to get clear... before i assume you have not.

have you actually ever been exposed to these languages in your life? (even not for a long period... even perhaps during early infancy?)

~ waves ~

Hi Waves (*Chuckles at High Waves*)

No, I can't say that I can ever remember anything like that. I do remember from a very young age. People don't believe me but I remember the frst time I opened my eyes after being born and seeing the midwife slapping the trainee midwife for doing something stupid (won't write what here). And I remember very clearly seeing, not in black & white, but grey, various shades of grey and some white, like the nurses caps & aprons were white.

I even remember my mum being gobsmacked when I asked her "why the lady hit the girl when I was borned?" To this day it freaks her that I saw it & that I remember it. off topic sorry...

I was never exposed to anything that could explain the types of conversations and words that come up...What thinketh ye?

Dear RhiannonsMoon,

what i was thinking was... if you had been exposed, but you haven't that you acquired some understanding of these languages - perhaps just phrases commonly heard combined with actions - a child's brain can hardwire that... in your linguistic centers which are in the temporal lobe(s) (different languages may be in different lobe) ... so i was thinking a temporal lobe sz could be "waking up buried languages."

but that doesn't fly if you haven't actually been exposed to the languages!

unless of course you are a believer in past lives, but i wasn't heading that direction, i was thinking on a pure neurological, this life basis. you could say i was moonstruck by your userid and the Gaelic... even though Welsh would have been a closer fit... there is that proximity, and you have spelling particularities common to my own early schooling. (is that cryptic enough!)

i suppose it is possible you had visitors as a child that you don't recall because of being asleep by then... but perhaps not completely. now i'm really REALLY stretching it.

seriously, i will see what i can find out assuming you indeed had NO exposure, as it is we do have this input:
i'm into languages... so i'm... curiouser and curiouser!

must be awfully annoying though. i do actually speak several languages and when i dream sometimes my dreams contain "composite speech."

when i'm awake i can and do mishmash two languages with my family who also speak both, but that's different - not an intrusive thing. when i have hypomania.... yikes. then i have things like the typical "tune you can't get out of your head" - but i don't actually hear it as in a hallucination. the problem i have however is that, the phenomenon is multiplied... i might have 3 different songs overlaid all playing intertwined somehow (plus loose verbal nonsense on the side.) that gets awfully distracting and the songs have on occasion been in different languages which gets even more "interesting" but this has nothing to do with epilepsy either, and is not remarkable insomuch as i do speak the languages.

i'll poke around and let you know when i find something.

~ waves ~ from across the ocean

Thanks Waves,

I guess anything is possible. I must change my answer though. Because when I was a kid my parents took me on a cruise and the cruise ship was Greek and the crew were mostly Greek. How could I forget something like that?? Sorry. But the other languages apart from the Gaelic which was widespread where I lived as a child but I didn't think I had picked any of it up. Obviously my brain was working without my full understanding (typical Irish). My Mother is Welsh but I've never heard her actually speak the language, not that I can remember...Boy you've started an avalanche here lol...

Thanks for your help...I do have TL epilepsy, so maybe I'm having flash backs to every foreign film I ever saw that had subtitles (we have international free to air tv here and I like to watch that, always have done, as an adult)...Thank You for making me think

Then it makes sense. A child will absorb language like a sponge, and if you do not use it, you might seem to have forgotten it as an adult ... or it might seem you never learned.

But with TLE, having had juvenile exposure to those languges, then yeah, i'd say it all adds up. Those auditory hallucinations do not surprise me at all, nor that you understand the phrases spoken.

Hang in there! I things can get under control soon. It does not sound like a picnic.

((( hugs )))

~ waves ~ glad to share a thinking cap any time