WEIRD SCIENCE Mystery of foreign accent syndrome

IMAGINE waking up with a strong German accent – despite, er, not being German at all.

Foreign accent syndrome, as it is known, has baffled medics for decades. Brain damage – commonly stroke – can change the pitch, intonation and timing of a patient’s speech, causing them to unintentionally take on a foreign accent.

Examples include an Australian woman who developed a French accent after suffering brain damage in a car accident, and Michelle Myers, above, from Arizona, who woke up one day in 2018 with a ‘Mary Poppins-style’ British accent after falling asleep the night before with a headache.

Most cases resolve in time, and speech therapy can ease symptoms.