Foreign Accent Syndrome

It's summer in Berlin and tourists are crowding the subway. Listening to foreigners pronounce the names of the stations can be hilarious.

Nearly all of us may have talked with a foreign accent just for fun - joking with friends. But in very rare cases, a person's voice takes on a dramatically different sound which listeners perceive as a foreign accent.

This phenomenon is called Foreign Accent Syndrome. It is an unusual neurological disorder with only 60 cases reported worldwide. Usually, it occurs after a severe brain injury, such as stroke or trauma. Doctors believe that it is caused by the damage of tiny brain regions associated with language and phonetic characteristics. As a consequence, the person suffering from the syndrome may draw out or clip vowels which, gives the impression they are speaking in a foreign accent. This syndrome is mostly transient, fading after 30 minutes, half a year or more than one year.
Indeed, evidence suggests a functional and causative role of the cerebellum in this speech disorder. It might result from a disruption of a close functional interplay between the cerebellar and cerebral speech centers involved in motor speech planning.

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thedailyenglishshow.com via flickr

by Nicole Hentschel, Alumni Medical Neurosciences 
this article originally appeared 2011 in CNS Volume 4, Issue 1, Neuroenhancement