If you don’t speak a foreign language, the next best thing is speaking your own language with a foreign accent, right? And if you could choose to suddenly wake up one morning and speak with the lilt of another tongue, which accent would top your list? One of the languages in the aptly-named “Romance” group such as Italian, French, or Spanish? The rugged, Crocodile Dundee-like manliness of the Aussie dialect? Or the history-steeped intellectuality of the Slavic conglomeration which often elicits a Tolstoi-esque aura of being?
For some people–albeit only about a hundred since “Foreign Accent Syndrome” was first identified and diagnosed in 1907–this is not an option; but rather, an involuntary affliction seemingly emanating from what basically amounts to brain damage.
According to scientists, it is usually precipitated by a head injury, stroke, aneurysm, or by multiple sclerosis. Some examples of the disorder have included an Australian woman who developed a French-sounding accent after a car accident and an American woman in Arizona who woke up one day with a mélange of British, Australian, and Irish brogues after falling asleep the previous night with a headache.
Of course, since brain injury can occur without regard to the speaker’s native language, FAS can happen to anyone, as has been documented in cases and languages all across the world. It seems to be related to conditions that affect and damage the left side, in particular the Broca’s area, of the brain. This is the segment responsible for producing speech.
One’s natural accent results from a system of sound patterns in one’s native language that is unconsciously learned through growth. This is called the phonetic system. Though accents can change early in life upon exposure to differing speech patterns and accents, after the teen years the phonetic system remains essentially fixed. This is precisely what makes FAS so confounding.
Typical pathology here involves trouble pronouncing clusters of sounds, word substitution, and change in patch or tone, according to a 2019 article appearing in Healthline Media, which was medically reviewed by Timothy J Legg, Ph.D., PsyD.
Interestingly, there are treatment options, including speech therapy and behavioral therapy, as doctors would urge that any notice of changes in speech should be immediately followed up with a visit to a medical specialist.