Yeah but when I do it after a couple drinks I’m just an asshole.

BIKES!

American here, punches myself in the head

"Oi, ya cunt."

What's the over/under that genz are already faking this one on tiktok?

Middle Eastern would get me in a world of trouble.

Hmmm.. Hilaria Baldwin?

Came here looking for this 🥒🥒🥒

“Como esta usted, matey.”

I don't think it is a foreign accent they are developing but they are speaking differently that the way they used to, it just so happens to sound like a foreign accent.

For example if I started pronouncing my R's differently, you could say I would sound like i am British or Bostonian, but no, i am just pronouncing my R's differently.

Sir, we weren't recording yet so you're going to have to do that one again.

Oi, ya cunt

We got it!

Some amazing scientific breakthroughs will surely come from this.

I am Swedish plumber!

I pick up accents when I travel. I was born in Texas but lived in Minnesota and went back to Texas for the summer months and traveled through Oklahoma and Kansas. I had such a weird accent when I moved to Arizona where many people have Mexican Spanish as their first language. Then I'll watch movies and pick up on accents from characters. I have been convinced for a long time that I may not be right in the head. Or that the me I'm perceiving now may not be the same me tomorrow.

I met a guy that had this about 10 years back. I have a background in languages and I couldn’t place his accent so I asked him where he was from. He said he’s a local but got into a bad car wreck that put him into a coma and he’s spoken that way ever since. He had a great sense of humor about it though. “I sound like Borat, right!?” He really did 🤦🏻‍♂️

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Yeah anything to explain a glitch in the matrix. Mmmhmm..

To anyone afflicted with with this condition, I apologize for the joke.

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Haha!! Me too!! 🥒🥒🥒😂😂

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Yeah, a lot of foreign accents exist because the people that learned foreign languages never formed the ability to produce certain vocal sounds because they are not relevant to their native tongue. Therefore, if you happen to lose the ability to produce a particular sound that is relevant to your own language, you'll sound foreign.

I wonder if when the brain fails to find the "primary" path it just defaults to a known working backup.

This is actually the same thing.

Your brain processes language differently when “doing a funny voice”. After trauma to the brain such as a stroke, the usual pathways for language processing can get blocked. The brain finds a work-around by sending your speech via the funny-voice neurones.

Weird, but it can keep you talking after brain injury.

I’m pretty sure this is a tell for someone with high empathy, actually.

No it is genuinely a foreign accent, like if you were doing a funny voice as a kind of racist impersonation or something.

Don’t laugh - it can be genuinely traumatic for people with this who can only talk in a fake voice.

The brain processes language differently if you are doing a funny voice as an impersonation. Sometimes brain injury, like aphasia after a stroke, can stop the usual speech pathways from functioning. The brain finds a work-around by sending your speech via the “funny foreign voice” processing centres. Weird, rare, but it happens.

My sister worked once with an old white lady who developed this and could (in her words) “only talk like a paki”.

It was genuinely traumatic for her that the only way she could speak was by doing a racist impersonation.

my dad suddenly went southern after he had what i assume was a stroke.. super weird.. dude has never been to the south.. very distinct change.

Also me, my first thought!

I hava not hear my voice in tree years now. High and tight!

I once knew a fellow who, in his youth, moved from his native country of Ireland to New Orleans, where he joined the military and (separately) went to New York, and by the time he got out of New York, they'd made him take speech classes because no one could understand his Irish-New Orleans-New Yorker accent anymore.

He worked at a Gamestop in Indiana in the late 00's with no accent at all, but lots of great stories to tell.

I've said it once, I'll say it again. British people are clubbed in the head at birth

I know a relative of my mine who spent 2 months in United States, came back and started speaking with an accent. Now it makes sense, he must’ve had head trauma incident while he was there! This happens a lot from what I’ve seen.

Was it correct to any particular region?

Knew a student with a speech impediment that made his Rs like Received Pronunciation. He refused speech therapy, plans to move to England.

My German uncle had a stroke and was unconscious for a bit. Woke up in the hospital and asked the nurse - in English, in which he is fluent - why he was there. She answered in German and then he started to freak out because he didn’t understand her so he had no idea where he was. They immediately called in some one to speak English to reassure him, but he never spoke German again and died a couple years later.

It's not real, it is an impediment to the movement of their tongue which affects their speech. If you want proof, just check with reality.

My niece got hit by a car a few years again and it changed the ways she talked in a weird way. Not exactly an accent, but she sounds like she is permanently doing sort of a character voice.

Aw bloody hell, went and hite me nocker again.

Kramer

My dad got that after his stroke. We are in the US, and he had a really solid Irish brogue after his stroke.

I don't know what else it is but I can tell you it's definitely annoying. I joke about it because everyone thinks I'm just faking but it's just not fun.

Did you hit your head too?

Be more specific is it a good natural sounding accent or a horrible brain fog accent ?

Gorlami.

Can you describe the not fun parts

I was just wondering if this was related. I was sitting at my neighborhood bar in Kentucky listening to a British couple have a conversation next to me. I was very drunk. Eventually I started talking to them and instead of my usual voice, everything came out British. I don't remember everything that was said, but they were convinced I was also British. Eventually I tried to give up the act but I couldn't find my normal voice. It actually freaked me out a bit because I was legit not trying to do the accent anymore but everything I said just kept coming out that way. They didn't think I was an asshole and had a good laugh about it.

I was told my great aunt had this after a stroke. She was italian, and after she woke up, spoke with a heavy german/polish accent for a few months. Granted, we live in northern Italy, so she probably HAD met someone that talked like that at some point.

Might have just been slurred speech, but the way it was described to me matches this.

Dang that sucks, I’d thought of French accents, English Accents and so many others, but hadn’t considered sounding like borat.

Met a lady that had a head injury and she had a French accent.

Recently I've watched a lot of documentaries and videos with people speaking british english, and I now find myself speaking with an accent that is a mix of my usual voice and a british accent (I'm from Texas). Sometimes when I think out loud I just use a british voice. I have to prevent myself form embarrassing myself in front of family.

Punch again a few times and you'll get to Texas!

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In America, is there a regional accent that's generally considered to make the speaker sound like a thick cunt? There's a few of those here in the UK....

I learned it from comedian Tom Segura.

Welcome to Australia, ya fucken seppo cunt!

This. I used to work in customer service, and I would copy the accent of whoever I'm speaking to. Heck, I copy the accent of anyone I'm speaking to in real time. It's driven me insane because I feel like I have no accent to call "my own".

after a few months was she back to her regular speaking voice?

Indeed. Mostly likely the signals to the mouth muscles have been damaged, reducing the range of movement in certain areas. People could lose the ability to form the θ (th) sound in "think" and instead pronounce it like "sink". This would add an almost German tint to their accent.

It's not like one day they are speaking with a British English accent and the next they suddenly have a legit German accent.

VERY NICE!

Ya like da cheeeesse, wa wa wi wa

Is this what happened to Hillary Baldwin?

How do you say…cucumber…

Yes, iirc she did speech therapy and that helped her return almost to normal

Yes, Northern Kentucky Abbey

Borat! Do it again. Jeff get in here.

Yes, it's actually a sign of pro-social behavior (or the need to people-please, or put others at ease, especially strangers you have just met or people you want to impress.)

Which can backfire when you do it automatically and people think you're having a laugh.

I genuinely cannot help it, if I try to concentrate on not mimicking someone's accent, I can't focus on what they're saying and it jumbles up my words, too.

I also watch Scrubs.

I have a colleague doing this. She said she just does it for fun but now I'm suspicious.

> “I sound like Borat, right!?” He really did 🤦🏻‍♂️

You mean “I sounds leek Borat, riiiiight?”

I can't accurately vocalize any foreign accents. I'd definitely sound like Borat. Very nice.

Imagine if some old lady in bumfuck Delaware just started calling everyone cunts, in an Aussie accent, after having a stroke.

Como se dicè......cucumber

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Brains are fucking weird.

From the info that’s available, that’s not correct.

Example - Texas lady with a British accent after jaw surgery.

A strong Southern accent is associated with lack of intelligence in many parts of the US

You should check out the extreme cases of this ... like Dorothy Eady.

Thought that might be the case. In England it's the northern accents that often Thought of that way

Are they really speaking with an accent? Or is their speech just changed due to brain injury, and we associate that change with an accent that sounds similar?

It’s hard to believe someone could just sporadically start speaking in an accent from a place they never visited before.

🤌🤌

I have this but only after i talk to someone with an accent for a long time, i will copy their inflections. I think I'm just an idiot though.

Shounding like Sean Connery all of a shudden sheemsh like a shmall prishe to pay for a shtroke.

Is this what happened to Andy Ngo? He must have gotten better since he doesn't have a British accent anymore.

Perhaps the injury revived a past life?

sounds like someone just watched the Tom Segura special

I tell ya Hwat….

Is it an actual foreign accent? Or that person’s idea of a foreign accent?

I do this as well. Spent 18 months in London and came home to the US with an accent that took at least a month to go away.

You know I can't speak for this syndrome, but a colleague of my parents automatically sort of 'mimics' the accent of his clients (he's a businessman working in sales) so when he's speaking with Australian clients he sort of does this...super weird Australian accent (for example, we're not Australian) :D is that conscious or on purpose

NO and NY accents share some similarities- notably some non-rhotic pronunciations.

What d'you mean, everyone I know speaks english with a french accent /s

I had to think for a second where this was from

This must be what Hilaria Baldwin has.

Thick LI or NJ accents are pretty bad

Our northern accents are pretty awful as well

Thash what yer muther said, Trebec

She's Span-ish

• G. Santos

To be honest, many southerners sound like stroke victims to begin with.

Full disclosure: am southerner.

Hope your father is doing well.

Haha, went to local college in georgia usa and did some studies with this lady in the math lab. After some time I asker her if she was British and she explained to me that she was american in a car accident following a short coma. She said when she woke up she was speaking like this, but she never noticed it until all her family kept asking her why she was speaking with a British accent. She said it felt natural and she couldn't tell the difference.

I have this issue. I had to fight it really hard when i worked tech support on the phone because customers don't want to think you're mocking them and are quick to assume it

This happened to me when I was a teenager, smoking some green and having beers. Started speaking with an Australian accent and it would not go away until sleeping it off.

That must be what happened to Madonna.

Redditors seem to "discover" this about once a month.

And a second study found 92 of them were trolls and the other 6 were paid to lie by Hilaria Baldwin. I mean not yet maybe but someday.

I watched a report on TV just before Christmas & in a small city outside Houston a Hispanic lady woke up speaking with a British accent after jaw surgery. She had a slight Spanish accent before the accident & now speaks perfectly British. It is weird but that’s not what this faker is doing, she’s just flat out lying!

It might be subconscious. People frequently mirror body language and speech patterns of people they like (or maybe want to be liked by).

What about drinking? My wife starts talking with a Boston accent when she gets drunk.

Buddy of mine just got engaged to his longtime GF. They’re from the Carolinas. Both families are from there too. She started speaking with a British accent when she was a small child and it continues to this day, some 20+ years later. The brain is very weird.

That's interesting and also a little bit funny :) to everyone else the aussie accent sounds quite fake :D hehe! I'll look into mirroring

He’s doing the best he can, mate! Lol

I've gotten that when very drunk. Luckily temporary

Its not rare in South Bombay. /s

Oh I know, not trying to make fun of him :D it's just interesting :D an aussie accent is a special thing on its own! Beautiful in its own right.

There is/was a woman on real housewives of Beverly Hills who has it.

I tell people this when I do a bad impression.

When you try to talk seriously to someone and they act like you're playing because you don't sound like you used to. I was born and raised in the deep South (with everything that implies of Southern ladies) so I can't even be impolite with telling people to knock it off because I'm serious. Even worse than that, though, is the fact that I lost the ability to assimilate accents according to the people I talk to. I used to be able to talk to someone for 30 minutes or so and perfect their accent which was very helpful in making anyone feel more comfortable and relaxed because I sounded like them. Now I can't do that anymore.

Please elaborate.
Where do I contradict the "info" available?

I didn't have time to read the link posted, but have heard of the syndrome before.

Having finally read the link posted, it falls in line with the example I gave. It also states that people's accents randomly changed after experiencing some form of trauma to the brain (including the area responsible for speech) or nervous system (which the brain uses to transmit and receive data to and from the body).

Surely these imply that the syndrome is something affecting signals to the mouth, causing restrictions in movement and therefore sound production.

Their accent wouldn't be a true German accent either. It would just have hints of a German accent because not all the vocal sounds have changed.

Do a Philadelphia accent if you insist on doing an accent!

Mine was temporary. Walked into a low-hanging beam, and knocked myself out. Came to, and every time I tried to say something it was gibberish—my name, address, city. The same sound was vocalized, but I knew it wasn't right.

Cleared up after eight hours. Scary.

I came here for a Segura reference. Did not disappoint.

I bet you have the OMG Facts calendar, as that is the fact of the day for todays date.

Don't let the kids on tik tok find out about this or that number will sky rocket

A local firefighter who does first aid training has this. Spent his whole life in WA and CO, has a strongly Nordic accent after his stroke. Fantastic guy, brings it up first thing in training so the day doesn't get derailed.

I have a friend who was born with a British accent. In Kentucky. Mom, Dad, and all 10 brothers and sisters have that southern twang. But something happened to her, and she has a geographical improbable accent.

I guess we’re having a misunderstanding of what each other is saying. I was implying that it wasn’t so simple as one sound being different but a complete or near complete change in pronunciations across a spectrum of sounds. Changing the way one pronounces a single sound, would not be sufficient to make a listener believe that they’re hearing a foreign accent.

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I had a friend who had an Australian accent 5 years after hanging out with a couple of Australian people for a while (and doing a bunch of drugs). They had never been to Australia and had not talked with anyone with the accent in the last 5 years. It was wild.

Was she French?

U S and A!

my aunt has this! she has had a ton of articles written about her because of it. she describes feeling an "explosion" in her brain and she switches accents regularly now.

Southerners ain't got shit on the Appalachian mountain people. Fucking need subtitles for them.

I know a dude with it. Got a massive concussion and woke up sounding like a Swede.

My grandmother was what we called “tongue tied” (not sure the medical term is). Basically I never could understand her.

Yup

Ah right.

I was just using a single sound as an example because I was feeling too lazy to get a collection of phonetic characters, a fault on my part.

Seeing as a lot of sounds use the same muscle groups, it stands to reason that multiple sounds will be affected from signal damage to the brain or nervous system rather than just one. It still wouldn't create a genuine German accent though, only hints of one. (I'm using German as an example purely because I recently watched a video on how to talk like Einstein)

I agree that a single sound change wouldn't sound foreign, but would sound unique, i.e., Sean Connery's accent.

It has more to do with the phonetic positioning of the tongue when pronouncing vowels and consonants. Head trauma can effect the cranial nerves which control the mouth, throat and tongue. The different between accents in the same language is principally due to the positioning and manipulation of these structures. So it isn't that they develop an authentic foreign accent, more that they misalign their speech producing anatomy and the misalignment produces an effect which is heard as foreign to the listener.

I’m just imagining some isolated Viking ages ago who spoke old Germanic, had a stroke, started speaking post-stroke strangely, and everyone around him over time picked up on his new accent. Hence, a new language was born.

What do you call it when one can quickly pick up a local accent wherever they are?

I speak fluent Spanish when I'm drunk but it was my first language that I forgotten.

I am now imagining a viking with a stroke that ended up with an accent none of his people understood, but we today would recognize as being from Boston.

So there is a condition called a tongue tie. Basically all of us have a little membrane running down the middle of the underside our tongue that connects it to the floor of your mouth. Some people have too much membrane and it stops their tongue from moving properly. It’s an easy fix, a little snip. But she may have literally just had this.

You can go look in the mirror and lift up your tongue and see yours. You can also lift your upper lip and see how the inside of your upper lip is connected to the gum above your two front teeth. The proper term for the one under the tongue is lingual frenulum if you want to Google it.

There's actually an Irish short movie about this. It's called Fluent Dysphasia, which is also another name for Foreign Accent Syndrome

Once I worked with this guy and couldn't place his accent, kind of Irish or Eastern Canadian but not exactly either. I asked where he was from and he said "Oh I've always lived here."

"I don't understand, what's the accent?"

"Well I had a concussion and it affected me speech." Awkward.

Does this explain Eminem's Relapse accent?

I'd have to go back and find the source but I remember reading somewhere that a a lot of these cases can easily be explained away because the person has less motor function control when speaking. It sounds like a foriegn language if that is what you are listening for, but in reality they are just slurring their words or incapable of pronouncing certain sounds that they used to be able to hit.

Good morning Julia!

I'd hate to sound like I was from London, poor guy

Probably don't Google anything with frenulum in it, just take their word for it.

TBF, a fellow Brit imitating a Texican can be pretty embarrassing ... heavy on the "y'all", horses, hats and either "steers and queers" or "bushwackers".

I knew someone like this. After a brain injury he spoke with a British accent

Almost as rare as a double pipe classic!

Must have been what happened to Madonna.

Is this the set up for a punch line? 😎

If not then I’m not aware of a specific name but that’s probably under the linguistics domain if you want to Google-fu the answer. I’m certainly guilty of that and probably sounding a little patronizing

It’s like hearing Schwarzenegger’s voice coming from Rob Lowe. Feels weird…

So my landlord wasn't a racist after all.

Mirroring and code switching

Watched a documentary about a person whom after a clinical death found out that he can speak|understand 106 languages.

I know several people for whom Hebrew and English are second languages and when they speak English, they sound like Borat.

Good morning my kings and queens above 18.

Always wear em high and tight!

Except it's not a foreign accent, it's a speech impediment which we interpret as being similar to how an accent sounds.

Difficulties with certain sounds etc.

Boston accent is based on the original counties in Ireland where the potato famine was worst and the most people fled. They happened to drop their R’s…..and 120 years JFK became president, speaking with the evolution of that accent.

But now when I listen to the Swedish Chef on the Muppets, I have to wonder if it all started with a Viking who survived a stroke….

bhahaha. thanks for that.

Yaaass pepino nation 🥒 I came here looking for this comment!

Nope, no funny biz here. Someone close to me can pick up the local accent no matter where she goes, she can leave with the accent.

I barely had to scroll to find what I was looking for. 😂

I think SBC speaks Yiddish when he does the fake Kazakh thing 🤔

Kansan

A river derci

It's not literally a foreign accent. It's a kind of aphasia that causes a speech impediment that sounds like a foreign accent. I saw clips of people with it in psych class. To me, it sounded like a British person who spent their adulthood in an -istan country.

I do this. I call it affecting the accent or mimicking. I usually don't even notice I'm doing it until someone points it out or it REALLY diverges from my normal accent.

My middle school spanish teacher had this after a car accidient. She would have long time periods of only being able to speak in spanish, but could SING in English. Was super bizarre and we thought she was just a nutjob.

I am actually guilty of this. My dad as well. We are sponges of life and just take on what's happening. My gf is Lakota and my dad has participated in MANY Sundances and sweat ceremonies to the point he has been an honorary Lakota. We both start drawing out our sentences when around natives. My gf also sounds midwest English, until she is around other natives.

I had some Australian friends online and they called me out because I got drunk and started mimicking their accent..

Edit: why is that bad? We adapt to the situation we are apart of to fit in and not be different. I feel like it's to conform to be apart of a culture, like someone trying out a language to fit in...jeesh

In college, I woke up really hungover and I talked like a movie pirate all day. Next day, back to normal.

I fell into a random accent after breaking out of a deep depression. I don’t remember so good anymore either but that’s the most noticeable change in me from that period. I’ve been told it sounds southern but I live in muchigan. I have family in the south and I visit every year and it sounds different than theirs so it’s not quite southern. Brains are weird yo