Accents! The salt and pepper of language! “Hey! I’m walkin’ here!” And like it or not, accents can be
“Hey! I’m walkin’ here!” And like it or not, accents can be indicators of class— “I suppose, I suppose. Yes, I suppose. Thank you.” Ethnicity— “I would like to buy a hamburger. Iwouldliketobuya undurgaa” Education— “Good day eh, we don’t have time for you to do your math.” And a myriad of other cultural archetypes. Even in media, we give characters accents to inform viewers how they should perceive them. Is a character uneducated? Just stereotype them as Appalachian. Is a character high-class? Just stereotype them as British! When we imitate accents, we interact with these stereotypes, but what do you do if you literally cannot stop putting on an accent? Today’s episode concerns a neurological and psychological illness As always we recommend speaking with medical professionals if you have any questions. And with that out of the way, Let’s get into it. Karen Butler, a normal Oregonian mother, had finally gotten to the point that “vanity was overridden by necessity” so she decided to take the plunge and go in for surgery to replace her teeth with dentures. It was a relatively straightforward surgery. She was put under anesthesia, and she woke up hours later, her mouth dry and numb. But when she tried to speak, her words came out wonky, slanted, and odd. She was obviously concerned, but her dentist assured her that her speech would be back to normal before she knew it. Little did her dentist know that it wasn’t her dentures that were behind this change. Days later she was still speaking with an unfamiliar lilt, one that she couldn’t place. Her speech was flavored with flecks of English, Irish, Romanian, and accents of other European languages. Whoa Brew hold the poutine, that’s super strange! I don’t know what I would do if I suddenly started talking in a foreign language. It’s an foreign accent, Chill. Not a foreign language. De quessé? So Butler, not knowing what to do, found neurologist Ted Lowenkopf, the director of the Providence Stroke Center in Portland who diagnosed her with what he called “Foreign Accent Syndrome”. Butler says that when she spoke with her family after the incident, they had a little fun with her. Her daughter, noticing that her mother was now speaking with a pseudo-Transylvanian accent, secretly recorded her saying “I vant to suck your blood” and set it as the ringtone for her mother when she called. Butler also works at a tax preparation company, and notes that many of her clients had to get used to her new way of speaking. When new clients ask her where she is from, she always tells them “Oh I’m from Oregon”. To which they often ask, “did you say Ireland?” “No, Oregon”. They then ask her “where did you get that accent?" “Oh I got it from Doctor Herkert in Toledo.” Foreign Accent Syndrome is also shortened to FAS. According to Healthline, it impacts one’s phonetic system, that is, the system of sound patterns in your native language that you learn as you grow up. These systems can change naturally, like after living in a new country for a number of years, but FAS is marked by sudden onset changes in your phonetic system. Symptoms of FAS include adding, removing, and substituting sounds for others, like saying stuh-rike instead of strike; changing the pronunciation of certain vowel sounds, like saying “yah” instead of “yeah”; and having trouble with sounds that require tapping your tongue behind your teeth, like “t” and “d”. Of these symptoms the most noticeable is that your speech changes to sound like you learned your native tongue as a second language. There are three different types of Foreign Accent Syndrome, neurogenic, psychogenic, and mixed. They are defined not by the difference in symptoms, but by a difference in cause. Neurogenic foreign accent syndrome can be caused by damage to the central nervous system by things like stroke, traumatic brain injuries, aneurysms, and Multiple Sclerosis. We don’t actually know too much about this for the simple fact that there just hasn’t been many cases that we’ve properly diagnosed. Since 1907 there have only been about 100 confirmed cases. That being said, one theory is that Neurogenic FAS is caused by some sort of malfunction within the Broca's area, which is, along with the Wernicke’s area, one of two areas of the brain that help formulate speech. For example, the sound “tree” and the concept of the word is stored in Wernicke’s area, and that information is transferred to Broca’s area, where the physical process of pronouncing the sounds in “tree” are stored. That information is then passed onto your lips and tongue to finally come out of your mouth as a full-fledged word. In the case of Neurogenic FAS, the concept of language stored in Wernicke’s area is intact, but the motor programs in Broca’s area have been damaged and therefore language comes out slanted. Brew, Grill, c’est quoi qui se passe? Toute mes pen sée sont en français! Pi je sais pas ou sont les paramètres langages de mon cerveaux! Comment que j’fais pour faire un reset? What the hell was that? It’s… It’s French. Yeah… Sounds made up. The second type, Psychogenic, is caused by “underlying psychological issues”, the most common being “conversion disorder”, which unfortunately, doesn’t tell us much. The US Department of Health defines it as “a disorder in which a person experiences blindness, paralysis or other symptoms affecting the nervous system that cannot be explained solely by a physical illness or injury”. It’s essentially just “Something’s wrong but we don’t know what it is yet disorder” We talk about conversion disorder in another video with more detail. Other mental illnesses can also trigger cases of psychogenic FAS. For example, a 34-year old woman in the United States suffering from schizophrenia came to the hospital after an altercation with a neighbor presenting with a “British-like” accent despite never having left the United States. The last type is a mixed variant of FAS that typically originates from some sort of neurogenic damage or abnormality, however the psychological impacts of the accent change is such that the patient will mould their identity around the change, therefore creating a more “believable” personality. Since Foreign Accent Syndrome can have a number of causes, treatments need to be tailored to the individual. That being said, speech therapy, and behavioral therapy are the primary methods that medical professionals will use to help those suffering from Foreign Accent Syndrome. They’re not a cure, but methods to mitigate the impacts. Like how painkillers can help mitigate the pain of a broken leg, but they don’t fix the bones themselves. If there are underlying medical issues, then treatment will focus on whatever is throwing your brain out of whack. For example, in cases of stroke-induced FAS, treatment will entail using anti-clotting medication to prevent future strokes, or surgically removing a blood clot from the brain. FAS is like a side effect of some other issue, and you might be able to get rid of it by addressing its underlying cause. We all have accents. “Don’t be a hero mate, no I said I’m not trying to be a hero but the police are coming!” Whether we’re British, “It’s shut. It’s shut.” American, “I don’t wanna kill the animal, but I do wanna warn it and say hey, I think you’re pretty neat, but I respect your distance.” We all have a specific way of speaking that is unique to the places and cultures we hail from. It can be difficult if you are suddenly treated as if you are foreign, even within your own backyard. The experiences of those with FAS are fascinating not only for what they can help us understand about the brain, but also what they can tell us about how do we treat people we consider different? Oh mon doux, ya quec chose de pas correcte icite, tout est en français! Uhh. Cul de sac! Ah man, il mange bien trop là, je peux pas faire ça à mon corps. Chill, you do know that FAS affects just the accent, not the language, right? Wait, really?
