After suffering a stroke, a Geordie woman in the UK started speaking in an accent that sounds Jamaican (or by some accounts, eastern European).
Researchers at Oxford University have found that patients with foreign accent syndrome have suffered damage to areas of the brain that affect speech.
The result is often a drawing out or clipping of the vowels that mimic the accent of a particular country, such as Spain or France, even though the sufferer has limited exposure to that accent. The syndrome was first identified during the Second World War when a Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel damage to her brain. She developed a German accent, which led to her being ostracised by her community.
Link (Thanks, Helen!)
Reader comments:
Jeremy says:
No-one is actually from Geordie. A Geordie is just someone from Northeast England, like Northumberland, Durham or Newcastle. They have a distinctive accent and dialect.
Liam Hemmings says:
I hate to be a pedant but the comment from Jeremy is wrong.
A Geordie is a person from Tyneside. This does not include people from the Northeast of England more generally. For example people from Wearside are often known as Mackems whilst people from Teeside are know as Smoggies.
It is believed that Geordie derives from the name "George" as they supported King George during the Jaccobite Rebellion.
As for the Geordie dialect: it is more like lowland Scots, retaining far more of the ancient Viking and Anglo Saxon than more Southern areas of the Country.
Jody says:
You can watch an interview with the woman from this story here. She sounds French to me.
Gavin Brown says:
I remember hearing an episode of BBC Radio 4's "Home Truths" that
featured a man with FAS. He originally spoke with a bog-standard Estuary
English accent, but after his stroke, spoke with an Italian accent (in
fact, Italians actually identify his accent as coming from a specific
region). The HT site has a RealAudio stream.
