Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare condition where a person speaks with a foreign accent after a traumatic brain injury, aneurysm, or stroke. It is caused by damage to the brain’s speech center and can cause social anxiety or agoraphobia. Some researchers believe that the accent is not actually foreign, but a damaged form of speech.
In 1941, a Norwegian woman’s brain was damaged by shrapnel during a German bombing raid. As she recovered from the head injury, she began speaking her native Norwegian language with a thick German accent. Her doctors could not explain this phenomenon, although some villagers began to suspect that she was a German spy or collaborator. She was eventually shunned by her fellow villagers, never regaining her natural Norwegian accent. Her extremely rare condition would go down in the medical books as Foreign Accent Syndrome.
Foreign Accent Syndrome is so rare that most sources report fewer than 20 cases worldwide since 1941. Virtually every case has appeared following a traumatic brain injury, aneurysm, or stroke. The patient can recover normally from the initial trauma, only to begin speaking with a foreign accent several weeks or months later. Some medical professionals initially suspected the syndrome to be a psychosomatic condition, but further research has shown that nearly all of the victims have suffered damage to a specific section of the brain that controls speech.
Those rare individuals with this condition are often troubled by its unexpected onset. Family, friends and the media may be fascinated by the sudden change in accent, putting a very public face on what should have been a private moment of recovery. Medical and language researchers may also want to subject the patient to a variety of tests. Some patients have been known to recover their original accents, but many do not.
One theory regarding foreign accent syndrome is that the sufferer does not actually speak with a foreign accent at all, but the listener assigns one based on inflection and emphasis. Several Americans diagnosed with the condition are said to speak with a British accent, even though they have never visited the UK and grew up in areas with strong native accents, such as New York. Some researchers believe that the patients are actually speaking a damaged form of English caused by the initial lesion in the brain’s speech center. What listeners perceive as a clipped British accent may actually be an Americanized stutter of speech.
Foreign Accent Syndrome is not considered a life-threatening condition, but sufferers may experience great social anxiety or suffer from agoraphobia, a fear of crowds and public spaces. Communication is a vital part of anyone’s quality of life, so those diagnosed with the condition often feel a sense of frustration when they can no longer recognize their own voice.
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