This is an extremely rare and puzzling phenomenon. According to an expert report from Duke University in North Carolina and the Carolina Urology Research Center in South Carolina published in the british medical journala man with prostate cancer developed an “uncontrollable Irish accent” during treatment.
“His accent was uncontrollable, present in all contexts and gradually became persistent,” it said.
This accent is recognizable by the hardening of certain consonants, as well as a very strong pronunciation of the letter “R”, often rolled. A transformation all the more astonishing as the man in his fifties, who had lived in England in his youth, has never set foot in Ireland and has no ancestry in this country. According to scientists, he suffered from this disorder for about twenty months before succumbing to the disease from him.
additional research
In their report, the scientists mention the appearance of the foreign accent syndrome, a disorder caused in principle by a strong blow, a head injury or a cerebrovascular accident, for example, which causes damage to areas of the brain involved in the preparation and in the the execution of complex motor actions. It has also been identified in patients with psychological disorders and produces a change in diction.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of the syndrome described in a patient with prostate cancer and the third described in a patient with a malignant tumor,” write the researchers, who insist on the perfect neurological condition of the fifties.
According to them, this disorder could have arisen from the proliferation of “multifocal brain metastases” that caused a “paraneoplastic neurological disorder” that attacked the immune system, certain parts of the brain and the nervous system of the patient. The authors of the report have announced that they will continue their research on this topic.
rare cases
If the cases are infrequent, they are no less spectacular. In an article on the subject, The Guardian Let’s take the example of the British Sarah Colwill who, after a vascular accident, began to speak with a Chinese accent. The case of another Briton who, after a similar accident, spoke with a Jamaican accent is also mentioned.
One of the first identified cases is reported by Human Sciences, and dates from World War II. Victim of a bombing, a surprised young Norwegian woman began to speak with a thick German accent and her entourage took her for a Nazi spy.
According guardianThis syndrome can be cured gradually through speech therapy sessions or be permanent.
Source: BFM TV
