How did Elisa become mute?

It is never explained in detail, what you hear in the movie is what we know for now I think, you could call it a story macguffin to have her being mute and have the scars in the shape of gills, I almost saw it coming from the very beginning that she would turn into a fish lady by the end because of the shape of her scars, I just enjoyed the movie for what it was, a low budget film with a fantasy story.

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We don't know what caused it, but it is interesting...

When Strickland was interviewing Elisa and Zelda, he asked how she got the scratches. He asked if her vocal chords were cut. Zelda said that Elisa mentioned that she was born with them. Could be a lie, but it is interesting that Elisa was found in a basket in water with the scratches.

Well, after it was revealed that Elisa is an orphan and was found somewhere near the water, I was expecting that her scars were left by a female amphibian goddess foreseeing the girl making it out with her husband. No such luck ((

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She, like the male water guy, was originally a 'water baby' of some sort. Add up the clues:

- it says in movie she was found near water
- she has those marks (gills?) on her neck
- she connected so easily and deeply to the water guy
- if she had a biological history of living in water, would make sense she wouldn't communicate verbally

So she's not totally human, but some hybrid.

How did Elisa become a deaf mute?

She was forced to listen to Jimmy Kimmel every night

I thought I read they were scars from botched surgery trying to get her voice working or.. something.