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Sudden Language / Accent Acquisition (Xenoglossy; Foreign Accent Syndrome)

My 13 year old niece spent nine months in hospital last year, two months of it in a coma. She had - has - autoimmune encephalitis. When she came round she’d completely lost her Midlands accent, and was broad South Wales Welsh. Maybe not that surprising as her dad’s side of the family are from South Wales, but her father has a barely perceptible accent. She still - a year after coming round- sounds really Welsh.
 

Here's a Texan woman with an 'English' accent. It's pretty close actually but a little bit off. You'll notice she puts a glottal stop when she says 'kidding', which I don't think is present in any accent in England. It might sound English to Americans though, because we may use a glottal stop for the 't' sound, and in some American accents 't' is pronounced very like 'd'. So presumably in her native accent 'kidding' and 'kitten' are pronounced as homophones. .


Coming from continental Europe but dealing everyday with both UK and US speaking colleagues - I believe that there is some issue with tongue muscles of some sorts. I can still hear her trying to say things in American English but there is some kind of mechanical feature changing the way she says things - it is for me some muscular blockage and it is really simulacra it sounds British
 
Coming from continental Europe but dealing everyday with both UK and US speaking colleagues - I believe that there is some issue with tongue muscles of some sorts. I can still hear her trying to say things in American English but there is some kind of mechanical feature changing the way she says things - it is for me some muscular blockage and it is really simulacra it sounds British
I think you might be dead right. A lot of the difficulty in learning how to properly pronounce foreign languages is in retraining the tongue and throat so they will make unfamiliar shapes – the phonemes we're used to are drilled into us since birth. If for whatever reason, there was some issue with the muscles in those places being able to make the shapes they were used to, we'd be making different phonemes when talking and as you say it would sound like a foreign accent by simulacra/pareidolia.
 
Apparently, when children first learn speech, there is a window of time in which they can learn any language. Once they have developed past this stage, ie have learned their mother tongue, there are sounds that they will not learn. This is one of the reasons, for example, that Chinese speaking people have difficulty pronouncing the English letter "L". And is it Finnish that is quite a difficult language to learn to speak?
 
I think you might be dead right. A lot of the difficulty in learning how to properly pronounce foreign languages is in retraining the tongue and throat so they will make unfamiliar shapes – the phonemes we're used to are drilled into us since birth. If for whatever reason, there was some issue with the muscles in those places being able to make the shapes they were used to, we'd be making different phonemes when talking and as you say it would sound like a foreign accent by simulacra/pareidolia.

English is a very lazy tongue to speak too

My 13 year old niece spent nine months in hospital last year, two months of it in a coma. She had - has - autoimmune encephalitis. When she came round she’d completely lost her Midlands accent, and was broad South Wales Welsh. Maybe not that surprising as her dad’s side of the family are from South Wales, but her father has a barely perceptible accent. She still - a year after coming round- sounds really Welsh.

It was after Viral Encephalitis my language ability really kicked off, hmmmm
 
English is a very lazy tongue to speak too
What does that mean exactly? I know that certain sounds that native English speakers think are 'easy' are difficult to impossible for speakers from different first languages. /Th/ (both kinds), /r/, /l/ etc.
 
What does that mean exactly? I know that certain sounds that native English speakers think are 'easy' are difficult to impossible for speakers from different first languages. /Th/ (both kinds), /r/, /l/ etc.

Conversely, some nuances used to differentiate letters or phonemes in other languages are blurred together in English, making it difficult for English speakers to grasp the nuances when listening and / or reasonably emulate them when speaking.
 
I used to be able to speak a little Flemish, this only resurfaced as I now work with a colleague who is from near Brugge so I recap a little of what I knew with him.

Certain sounds in Flemish are remarkably difficult for an English person to pronounce. Like the sound 'sch' as in schip, and the 'oe' sound for example.
 
. . . a stroke and a lager is less drastic but works much the same, I gather . . .
Certainly heard of this before:

Foreign accent syndrome

Foreign accent syndrome is a medical condition in which patients develop speech patterns that are perceived as a foreign accent that is different from their native accent, without having acquired it in the perceived accent's place of origin.

Foreign accent syndrome usually results from a stroke, but can also develop from head trauma, migraines or developmental problems. The condition might occur due to lesions in the speech production network of the brain, or may also be considered a neuropsychiatric condition.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_accent_syndrome
 
A young Australian woman had her tonsils removed. A little over a week later she woke up to find she'd suddenly developed a persistent "Irish" accent.
Brisbane woman wakes up with Irish accent after tonsil surgery

When Angie Yen woke up on April 28, it felt like just another morning.

But when the 27-year-old dentist got in the shower and started singing — something she always did — she was shocked by the sound she heard.

Instead of her normal Aussie accent, Ms Yen was stunned to hear a “foreign accent” that “sounds very Irish”.

“When I started singing I was singing in a different sound and also talking words in a funny accent,” the Brisbane woman told news.com.au.

Panicked, she phoned one of her friends who was in equal disbelief at Ms Yen’s sudden accent change.

“He was the one who actually told me and sent me links later about foreign accent syndrome (FAS) ... "

Fearing she had — or was about to — have a stroke (a possible cause of FAS), Ms Yen went to hospital that day.

But because she was showing no other signs of illness she was discharged and told to go home and rest.

“They couldn’t do anything, I was normal. I just sounded different and (they said), ‘you’re still healing from your surgery so maybe your vocal cords are damaged’,” she said.

On April 19 Ms Yen had gotten her tonsils removed – a simple procedure that had taken just half an hour.

Her ear, nose and throat specialist also suggested Ms Yen wait to see if her voice change disappeared on its own.

But as the days wore on, Ms Yen said her new accent didn’t go away, leaving her friends and family in disbelief. ...

What is foreign accent syndrome?

“Foreign accent syndrome is when someone suddenly develops what is perceived to be a foreign accent,” Professor Lyndsey Nickels, a speech therapist and language impairment specialist at Sydney’s Macquarie University, told news.com.au.

“This is despite the person having never necessarily having spoken that particular foreign language, never necessarily having spent time abroad, nor having mixed with people with that foreign accent.”

Prof Nickels, who is not treating Ms Yen, said she had never heard of an instance where tonsil surgery caused FAS. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...y/news-story/1012f74a222affc0ac18c9090d54dc3a
 
I used to speak French with (apparently) a Parisian accent. I was moderately fluent in those days. I haven't spoken much French at all for the last thirty years, apart from the odd word and I now find that I can't 'force' my mouth and tongue to make the sounds that used to be second nature. Anything near the back of the throat (that kind of half-swallowed sound) I can no longer produce. Maybe the ageing process 'stiffens' certain muscles. I wonder, too, if I moved back to France, whether I would eventually get my Parisian accent back?
 
I used to speak French with (apparently) a Parisian accent. I was moderately fluent in those days. I haven't spoken much French at all for the last thirty years, apart from the odd word and I now find that I can't 'force' my mouth and tongue to make the sounds that used to be second nature. Anything near the back of the throat (that kind of half-swallowed sound) I can no longer produce. Maybe the ageing process 'stiffens' certain muscles. I wonder, too, if I moved back to France, whether I would eventually get my Parisian accent back?
I speak Spanish with a Guatemalan accent, but haven't visited Guatemala for 5 years or so (although I do still speak Spanish frequently). If past experience is anything to go by, my British accent has gotten stronger during my absence, but my fluency and accent will improve rapidly once I'm back. One odd thing I've noted in the past is that my vocab shifts in terms of word preference.
 
This article describes the cases of 2 Australian women with Foreign Accent Syndrome as well as recent test results indicating the condition is associated with neurological anomalies.
The rare condition with only 100 known cases globally

... FAS is a legitimate and very rare condition, with only about 100 known cases globally.

Speech pathologists describe it as some kind of functional neurological disorder, similar to a stutter for example, but it has FAS patients suddenly sounding like they're from another part of the globe. ...

Brisbane woman Angie Yen and Northern Territory woman Kate Baggs both woke up with Irish-sounding accents. Neither of them has ever been to Ireland.

"All of a sudden, all these voices and sounds were coming out of my mouth that's not my own. And I'm like, hang on a second. Am I dreaming about this?" Angie Yen told us. ...

She developed her accent in late April. But Kate Baggs has had hers for two years now.

"In the middle of a sentence, my accent just shifted. And it was the strangest feeling," Kate said. ...

Both Angie and Kate had a functional MRI, with the scan processed using new Omniscient software able to read the brain's signals.

In both Angie and Kate's scans, neuroscientist Dr Michael Sughrue noticed abnormal activity in their language centres – areas that were overactive and some that weren't active enough. He said the scan was objective proof that this was not made up – that the signals in the women's brains were misfiring, causing them to speak in a foreign-sounding accent. ...

It was welcome news for Angie and Kate, a relief that at least now they know there is something strange going on in their brain. And even better was the news there was no neurological damage, meaning there is hope they could one day revert back to their Australian accents. ...
FULL STORY: https://9now.nine.com.au/60-minutes...globally/19730993-18e2-42b8-9c7b-76fde1bf978f
 
Italian woman's rare 'foreign accent syndrome' caused her to sound Canadian

A woman in Italy who went to the emergency room experienced a puzzling symptom: She suddenly began speaking in a Canadian accent even though her native language was Italian, according to a new report.

The woman was diagnosed with an extremely rare disorder known as foreign accent syndrome (FAS), a condition in which a person develops a sudden change in their speech that makes them sound like they are speaking with a foreign accent. Only about 150 cases have ever been reported since the condition was first described in 1907, according to the new report, published Jan. 22 in the journal Neurocase.

Most often, the condition is related to brain damage associated with conditions such as a stroke or traumatic brain injury. But the woman's case was unusual because no such damage could be found.

The 50-year-old woman went to the emergency room when she suddenly began experiencing difficulty speaking and writing, as well as slurred speech that lasted about five minutes, according to the report. After this episode, doctors noticed that the woman's speech was normal but she had started speaking with a Canadian-like foreign accent in both her native Italian and in English, her second language. (She learned English at school beginning at age 10 and later through her work in English-speaking countries, the report said.)

At the hospital, the woman underwent several brain scans, but the results showed no signs of brain injury. The week before her hospital admission, she had tested positive for COVID-19, but by the time she arrived at the hospital, she tested negative.

https://www.livescience.com/italian-womans-rare-foreign-accent-syndrome-caused-her-to-sound-canadian

maximus otter
 
Apparently, when children first learn speech, there is a window of time in which they can learn any language. Once they have developed past this stage, ie have learned their mother tongue, there are sounds that they will not learn. This is one of the reasons, for example, that Chinese speaking people have difficulty pronouncing the English letter "L". And is it Finnish that is quite a difficult language to learn to speak?
Finnish belongs to the same 'language family' as Hungarian. In Hungary I met Finnish students who quickly learned Hungarian.
(They incidentally shared very acceptable Finnish vodka which would quickly make language irrelevant. :chuckle:)
 
Finnish belongs to the same 'language family' as Hungarian. In Hungary I met Finnish students who quickly learned Hungarian.
(They incidentally shared very acceptable Finnish vodka which would quickly make language irrelevant. :chuckle:)
It would make language of any kind difficult.
 
I have the ability(?) to pick up accents if I am speaking to someone who has an accent. I do this totally unawares until I realize that I kind of sound like I am mimicking the person's accent. I try to stop this because I know that it is a crap and fake accent and I am afraid that the person will think that I am making fun of their speech.

I do love hearing people's accents.

Funny the earlier article stating that an Italian woman started to speak with a Canadian accent. I swear that I could not pick out a Canadian accent, but I can hear an east coaster' accent regardless if it is someone who lives in the US or in Canada.
 
New story on the BBC:

US cancer patient developed uncontrollable Irish accent

A US man developed an "uncontrollable Irish accent" after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, despite having never visited Ireland, researchers say.
The North Carolina man, who was in his 50s, was presumably afflicted with foreign accent syndrome (FAS), the British Medical Journal reports.
The rare syndrome gave the man, who had no immediate family from Ireland, a "brogue" that remained until his death.
 
I have the ability(?) to pick up accents if I am speaking to someone who has an accent. I do this totally unawares until I realize that I kind of sound like I am mimicking the person's accent. I try to stop this because I know that it is a crap and fake accent and I am afraid that the person will think that I am making fun of their speech.

I do love hearing people's accents.

Funny the earlier article stating that an Italian woman started to speak with a Canadian accent. I swear that I could not pick out a Canadian accent, but I can hear an east coaster' accent regardless if it is someone who lives in the US or in Canada.
I do this too. It's horrifying. I'm off on holiday to Wales later this year, and I find that one of the worst in terms of picking up and mangling. I had a Welsh boyfriend for a while who had quite a strong Anglesey accent and I'd come away from conversations with him speaking a weird kind of hybrid Welsh/Indian accent.

I might just have to keep my mouth shut for the entire week (any bets on how likely this will be?)
 
One odd thing I've noted in the past is that my vocab shifts in terms of word preference.
This sounds interesting... do elaborate?! Do you mean that when you're speaking English again, you tend to pick words with the same root as the Spanish. More latin-based words than good old anglo saxon?
 
This sounds interesting... do elaborate?! Do you mean that when you're speaking English again, you tend to pick words with the same root as the Spanish. More latin-based words than good old anglo saxon?
No - I mean that when I go back to speaking Spanish 24/7 for an extended period of time, I use a different selection of Spanish words - some words I would once have used frequently are replaced with synonyms. Most odd. I speak Spanish every day, so I don't see any reason for the shift in vocabulary. When I am in Spain or Latin America (usually Guatemala) I tend not to speak any English for days or weeks on end, but may pick up different preferences in the way I use the language. I have gone on a couple of hiking holidays in Spain with Spanish friends, and when I come back my wife mocks me for having picked up some peninsular Spanish vocabulary without noticing.
 
Not sure if I have posted this before.... Back in the 1990's a friend of mine who is a bit of a linguistic genius was giving some private language tuition in Russian. One of her students was a young man recovering from a motorbike accident where he had suffered head injuries. He was doing quite well at Russian, the odd part of this is that she knew him before the accident ( I think he was at school with her children) and he was generally regarded as being a pleasant but rather slow youth who had no aptitude or real interest in language or other academic subjects.
 
Not sure if I have posted this before.... Back in the 1990's a friend of mine who is a bit of a linguistic genius was giving some private language tuition in Russian. One of her students was a young man recovering from a motorbike accident where he had suffered head injuries. He was doing quite well at Russian, the odd part of this is that she knew him before the accident ( I think he was at school with her children) and he was generally regarded as being a pleasant but rather slow youth who had no aptitude or real interest in language or other academic subjects.
Maybe it improved his brain?
Certainly, with some individuals, a hefty slap to the head can help with the education process.
 
I asked her about this, she said apart from the suddenly acquired interest and gift for lanauage he was still the same seat kid, a bit slow and shy.
 
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