
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 14, 1993                   TAG: 9312140167
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: TOKYO                                LENGTH: Short

JAPANESE EMPRESS REGAINS HER SPEECH

Japan's Empress Michiko has started talking again, two months after she fell mute because of a mysterious malady that royal doctors have attributed to "deep sadness" following unprecedented criticism in the media.

The Imperial Household Agency, the cautious, protective bureaucracy that oversees palace affairs, announced this weekend that the 59-year-old wife of Emperor Akihito had managed to say the word "Heika" - "your majesty" - to the emperor last week, and had also enunciated her daughter's name, "Saya." Doctors said she was also whispering faint words that might be complete sentences.

The medical report was taken as an indication that the empress is beginning to pull out of the psychological condition that has left her involuntarily silent since she collapsed Oct. 20. - The Washington Post

by CNB