There was a story on yahoo news that caught my eye. A woman has a dental procedure and wakes up with an English or Irish accent. She is found to have "foreign accent syndrome". Never heard of foreign accent syndrome? Me neither!!
There have been about 10 case worldwide of this syndrome. One English woman woke up to find herself with a Jamaican accent, which sometimes switched to French Canadian, Italian, or Slovic. Another woman developed a Chinese accent. And another Croatian woman awoke from a coma unable to speak Croatian, but speaking fluent German. I watched several videos of these people and their accents. Bizarre!! Now, the person may speak with a different accent, but do not change the words they say. So, the American woman will not say that she needs to go to the loo, and the English woman will not say "Irie". They continue to say the words they would normally say, just differently.
So what is this, really? Well, the person does not really develop a foreign accent. What happens, is there is a stroke or some type of damage to the language center of the brain. This causes distortion of the person's speech. This distortion causes them to pronounce words differently. It makes they change the length of their vowels and change their jaw shape and movements when speaking. In distorting their language, it makes them sound different, and we must label it as a British accent or a Jamaican accent, when really it is not. This explains why the English woman would have so many different interpretations of her accent; some say Jamaican, some say French Canadian. The truth is, no one knows what it is!
Now the case of the Croatian girl that awoke speaking fluent German is slightly different. What is odd about this? Well, that she can't speak Croatian anymore. What is not so odd? She had learned German in school. She possibly suffered damage to her language center, coupled with damage to her memory center. Now, it is not uncommon for people with strokes to be unable to speak. She could still understand her parents when they spoke to her in Croatian, but was unable to respond. Since she had the German filed away in her brain, and it couldn't process the Croatian, German is what came out. Now, her "fluent German" was probably not perfect. But to her Croatian speaking parents and doctors, it sounded perfect. Now, don't get me wrong, it was still good, but I could probably hold up a decent conversation in French if I could remember everything I learned in High School.
So, there you have it. Something you didn't know about Foreign accent syndrome!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_accent_syndrome
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/12/01/croatian-girl-wakes-from-coma-fluent-german-speaker/
http://www.doctorsofusc.com/condition/document/445940
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbTZ28QeKCY
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