Following a brain surgery operation, a British man woke up speaking with an Irish accent. He had never been to Ireland, so of course it came as a shock for his relatives and friends. After an hour or so, though, his speech was back to normal. This strange phenomenon is known as the Foreign Accent Syndrome. There were several famous cases, like a Norwegian woman in 1941 who began to spoke with a German accent after her head was hurt by a bomb shell. More recently, in 2008, an American woman woke up speaking with a Russian accent after an operation. But the scientists and linguists say that the patients are simply enable to pronounce some sounds, and it makes them sound like they are speaking with a foreign accent.
Anyway, don’t go hurting your head just because you want to improve your accent in Spanish! You may wake up with a broken head and a French accent…
We are doing a documentary series for a major cable network and are looking for people who have experienced Foreign Accent Syndrome. Please contact us – [email protected]
It is so amazing to me how a voice change gives people such different percetions of you. When this happened to me in Feb 16, 2008 it was sudden and out of the blue. A head injury from 22 years prior, and then an adjustment from a Chiropractor and suddenly no English at all. I am so glad to see that other people who are having this happen to them are comng forward. I really think there are many more folks out there who have had this happen. I have recieved phone calls or emails from New Zealand, California, Mississippi all saying they too have FAS.
Cindylou Romberg [email protected]