Speaker 1: Good afternoon, GUVNA. It's Chucky here on a Saturday, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to pick a selection called how.
Speaker 2: Foreign Accent Syndrome Works.
Speaker 1: No idea or what this is about, but it is
Speaker 1: from March twenty eight, twenty seventeen, and I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Good day. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 3: there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here is always
Speaker 3: So it's stuff you should know, Stuff you should know.
Speaker 2: You should have said that in a British accent.
Speaker 3: It's stuff you should know. Ay, how's that?
Speaker 2: It was great? You're a regular rich.
Speaker 3: Little Remember the arrest development little subplot where Charlie's Theren
Speaker 3: was thought to be a British spy. Oh yeah, what
Speaker 3: was uh for British eyes only?
Speaker 2: Yeah? But what was the name of her character?
Speaker 3: Mister F, mister F. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: I knew I had some like They said that every time. Right,
Speaker 2: it's pretty funny. She's great, Yes, she was pretty lady, Funny, smart, Yeah,
Speaker 2: good actor?
Speaker 3: What else?
Speaker 2: That's all I got on her? She can macro may
Speaker 2: Oh really, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just assume.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is left to a great start.
Speaker 3: Uh is it's unusual? Odd even you could say that
Speaker 3: you suggested I say the intro in a British accent
Speaker 3: because we're talking about foreign accents today.
Speaker 2: Chuck, that's right, it was coy m.
Speaker 3: I see now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we're specific not talking about There's a thing
Speaker 2: sometimes that certain people do when they meet someone with
Speaker 2: an accent different than their own, right where they accidentally
Speaker 2: or sometimes purposely adopt it momentarily.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's called code switching.
Speaker 2: My mom's done this before that. I remember it happened
Speaker 2: when I was a kid. My brother and I thought
Speaker 2: it was so funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it seems like it's usually a parent of
Speaker 2: an embarrassed child. Sure is there an explanation behind it?
Speaker 3: Or yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So this is from what I understand. This is the point. Right, So,
Speaker 3: our accents are extremely personal. They're part of like us individually,
Speaker 3: but they also signal our membership in different groups. Right, So,
Speaker 3: like a farmer is going to talk differently from a stockbroker,
Speaker 3: and a farmer from Georgia is going to talk a
Speaker 3: lot differently than a stockbroker from Portland, Oregon. Right, okay,
Speaker 3: because that's the other stock market seat. Yeah, you thought
Speaker 3: I was going to say New York I Nope. So
Speaker 3: when we when we code switch, when we meet other
Speaker 3: people and take on their their way of talking, it's
Speaker 3: called code switching, and I think it's a way of signaling, hey,
Speaker 3: we have something in common. I don't want you to
Speaker 3: be distracted by it's. Yeah, my overalls with no shirt
Speaker 3: on are distracting enough. I don't want you to be
Speaker 3: distracted by my accent too. So I think it is
Speaker 3: a way of saying, like, hey, i'm, I'm, I'm, we
Speaker 3: have something in common. The thing is, accents are such
Speaker 3: a part of group identity that if you do that
Speaker 3: in front of some other members of your group, whether
Speaker 3: it's your family or your friends or whatever.
Speaker 2: They're going to tease you.
Speaker 3: They are going to tease you, guaranteed. And one of
Speaker 3: the reasons why is because what they're doing, consciously or
Speaker 3: otherwise is maintaining the borders of their own group's identity. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're saying, don't put on airs, don't think you're fancy,
Speaker 3: don't think you're just like that guy, You're one of us.
Speaker 3: And making fun of somebody who adopts someone else's accent
Speaker 3: is a way of doing that. It's a way of
Speaker 3: maintaining group divisions and borders. Well, really, when you do
Speaker 3: kind of adopt someone else's accent, I think one of
Speaker 3: the things that you are doing is trying to make
Speaker 3: the foreigner, the stranger feel more comfortable. And having met
Speaker 3: your mom, I guarantee that's what she was doing.
Speaker 2: Well. I just remember the only one I remember specifically,
Speaker 2: and you know, you just had these random childhood moments
Speaker 2: that sort of stick with you was we were in
Speaker 2: Florida and we were talking with an Irish woman. I
Speaker 2: believe she may have been from England, but I think
Speaker 2: she was Irish. And the other thing too, is you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think my mom had probably talked to a
Speaker 2: lot of our Irish people at that point. You know,
Speaker 2: she's from West Tennessee. They moved to Georgia. We didn't
Speaker 2: have Irish people all over the place. She wasn't super
Speaker 2: well traveled back then, although she is much more now,
Speaker 2: so it was probably a bit novel to her. And
Speaker 2: I remember very specifically the woman said something about going
Speaker 2: to Disney instead of Disney World, and my mom said
Speaker 2: she got kind of proper, and she says, you know,
Speaker 2: we haven't been to Disney yet. And I remember my
Speaker 2: brother and I just thought that was so funny. Instead
Speaker 2: of saying Disney World, did.
Speaker 3: You guys make fun of her in front of the woman?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. We may have laughed a
Speaker 2: little under our breath, but I mean, I don't think
Speaker 2: we I don't think we even teased her. I'm teasing
Speaker 2: her now a bit, sure, but I don't think like
Speaker 2: we made fun of her really. I think we just
Speaker 2: kind of, like my brother and I want to do,
Speaker 2: very quietly, looked at each other and in that way
Speaker 2: that brothers do.
Speaker 3: Right, and then talk to each other like the kids
Speaker 3: an Escape from which Mountain?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Were they telepathic? Yeah, but it's funny. I was
Speaker 2: listening to the Great Judge John Hodgman podcast, Oh Yeah
Speaker 2: with her pal John and Jesse Thorne bailiff Jesse, and
Speaker 2: they had an actual case a few weeks ago that
Speaker 2: was very funny where this this mom does this on purpose.
Speaker 2: She's a trained actor and loves to put on accents
Speaker 2: when she goes to places, and the daughter was just
Speaker 2: she took her to the internet court and was just
Speaker 2: like stop doing this, like you've got to stop doing this.
Speaker 2: And the mom's whole thing, she was very just fun
Speaker 2: and whimsical and having a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 2: So it was really hard to rule against her. But
Speaker 2: I think codgmen ultimately did rule against her.
Speaker 3: He's tough but fair.
Speaker 2: Well. I think his whole thing was, like you know,
Speaker 2: I think he ruled partially in her favor, like you
Speaker 2: got to let him know where you're from. And you
Speaker 2: can't do it to like waiters and service people because
Speaker 2: their job is to like take your dumb jokes and
Speaker 2: have a stiff upper lip about it, and it just
Speaker 2: kind of makes their job harder if they think maybe
Speaker 2: you're making fun of them, and you know, like you
Speaker 2: may not realize the unintended consequence of this is somebody
Speaker 2: may feel uncomfortable that they have to put up with this.
Speaker 3: Wow, that was it was like a really serious turn
Speaker 3: at the end.
Speaker 2: There, No, it did. I mean, you know this was
Speaker 2: great about that show is they're funny cases, but he
Speaker 2: adjudicates seriously.
Speaker 3: I think, oh yeah, and then Jesse always shoots his
Speaker 3: gun off at the end. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Beeah. So anyway, I just thought that was pretty weird
Speaker 2: that this article came up and then that episode had
Speaker 2: just aired. But that's different than what we were talking
Speaker 2: about totally. Like I started saying, this is not that
Speaker 2: at all. This is a legitimate, super rare. This reminded
Speaker 2: me of alien hand syndrome and its rarity. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: I've seen different numbers, but the most I've seen is
Speaker 2: about one hundred and fifty described official cases of foreign
Speaker 2: accent syndrome.
Speaker 3: Right, that's super rare for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And what makes it different from somebody taking on the
Speaker 3: affect or dialect or accent of somebody else, someone taking
Speaker 3: the piss, right, this is where you can't stop. It's involuntary. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you know it sounds weird, it's an exotic and
Speaker 3: you just want to like poke the person who's doing
Speaker 3: that in the neck to be like what are you
Speaker 3: doing there? But if you really start to dig into
Speaker 3: the actual cases, it's sad in a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of cases. Oh yeah, Because again, your accent, what
Speaker 3: you sound like, makes up a part of your personality.
Speaker 3: So if you are if it changes on you involuntarily,
Speaker 3: it can be quite traumatic. For some people, you could
Speaker 3: have an identity crisis of sorts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess we should go ahead and talk
Speaker 2: about a couple of cases so people know what we're
Speaker 2: talking about. The first one mentioned in our own article
Speaker 2: is really interesting for a few reasons, and it's the
Speaker 2: most recent case that's documented. Oh I'm sorry it's not
Speaker 2: the most recent, but it is fairly recent. A woman
Speaker 2: named Lisa Alamia, she had jaw surgery because of an overbite,
Speaker 2: and then when she came out of surgery, even though
Speaker 2: she was from Texas and had never been to England,
Speaker 2: she spoke with a British accent and.
Speaker 3: She's like, right, bloody hell and way, I need our
Speaker 3: British listeners to write in and tell me how good
Speaker 3: my British accent is.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I'm known on the show for doing the
Speaker 2: bad accent, so I'm glad you're taking up.
Speaker 3: No, yours are good. I don't know minor.
Speaker 2: They verge on decent at times.
Speaker 3: Well, there's cartoonish and stereotypical, really really good cartoonish stereotypical
Speaker 3: versions of accents.
Speaker 2: So she woke up had that accent, and her husband
Speaker 2: and three kids thought it was a joke. She had
Speaker 2: only been outside the country to go to Mexico and
Speaker 2: it was a real thing called foreign accent syndrome.
Speaker 3: Yes, I've ever been to England. She apparently probably had
Speaker 3: seen British people on TV kind of thing. But her
Speaker 3: case actually is the opposite of what I was saying.
Speaker 3: She was apparently quite shy before, and now she has
Speaker 3: something to talk about a conversation opener. I guess she's
Speaker 3: a little more chatty than before.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: It's the opposite of some other people who have really
Speaker 3: experienced a crisis. As a result, she's like, well, I
Speaker 3: sound British now, I guess I should talk more than before.
Speaker 2: So she sounds like a drunk cockneque chimney sweep pretty much.
Speaker 3: And she does sound cognity to me.
Speaker 2: Oh really, I didn't hear I didn't see this one
Speaker 2: on YouTube.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we should say, you know, this is kind
Speaker 3: of like optical illusions. It's one thing to talk about it.
Speaker 3: You need to actually go see and hear these people talking. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you just look up Lisa Alamia A La m
Speaker 3: i A and you will find plenty of interviews with her.
Speaker 3: She's she's, like you said, fairly recent. There's one that's
Speaker 3: quite a famous case. Maybe the most famous because it
Speaker 3: was the one that put foreign accent syndrome on the map,
Speaker 3: even though it was before the term was coined.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one had a much darker turn because it
Speaker 2: was during World War Two. A Norwegian woman named Astrid
Speaker 2: suffered injury and the ironies here are really sad. She
Speaker 2: suffered a brain injury from shrapnel from a German bomb
Speaker 2: and a bombing raid, and then when she came to
Speaker 2: she had a German accent. Right, very not fun for her.
Speaker 3: No, because the Germans were occupying Norway at the time, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: so people she didn't really know, we're like, oh, hey,
Speaker 3: German spy.
Speaker 2: Yeah you want some milk?
Speaker 3: No milk for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was shunned. She couldn't even speak German, but
Speaker 2: she had that accent and was obviously very distraught by this.
Speaker 2: And she went to a neurologist name Yorg Rman Monrad Krone.
Speaker 2: Nice job, it's a great name. And he coined the
Speaker 2: first term for this, which is dysprosody, which is prosody
Speaker 2: is like the tone and rhythm of your speech. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the prefix discs obviously is like abnormal or ill,
Speaker 2: And that didn't catch on too well.
Speaker 3: It didn't, but as we'll see, he kind of nailed
Speaker 3: what the problem was. Yeah, because you know, the non
Speaker 3: grammatical parts of speech, the prosody are what is affected
Speaker 3: when you have foreign accent syndrome. You have what appears
Speaker 3: to be a foreign accent, but usually your vocabulary, your syntax,
Speaker 3: your grammar remains unchanged. It's all the little nuances that
Speaker 3: make up your accent or your intonation or the rhythm
Speaker 3: of your speech that are affected and has changed. So
Speaker 3: dysprosody is actually like the perfect name for the syndrome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but foreign accent syndrome is way more catchy in
Speaker 2: that Oh it's sexy. In nineteen eighty two, neurologist named
Speaker 2: Harry Whittaker came up with that. So Whittaker coined it
Speaker 2: in the eighties. I think nineteen eighty two was when
Speaker 2: he coined that official term.
Speaker 3: Right, And he was a neurolinguist who did some pretty
Speaker 3: serious research into foreign accent syndrome. He actually came up
Speaker 3: with a four point criteria for diagnosing it, and the
Speaker 3: number one is that the accent has to be considered
Speaker 3: by the patient, the people the patient knows, and the
Speaker 3: researcher of the doctor to be to sound like a
Speaker 3: foreign accent, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty straightforward from what they are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's number two. It has to be different
Speaker 3: from the patient's former prosody, noticeably different. Number three, it
Speaker 3: has to be related to central nervous system damage and
Speaker 3: this one has come under fire under the last few years.
Speaker 3: And then four it can't be related to to a
Speaker 3: patient's ability to speak a foreign language already. Right, So
Speaker 3: there's actually a condition, it's astounding to me. It's called
Speaker 3: bilingual aphasia, or there's also polyglotaphasia. And apparently if you
Speaker 3: suffer a stroke or brain injury or some other trauma
Speaker 3: or insult to your central nervous system and you know
Speaker 3: more than one language, you may completely lose the ability
Speaker 3: to speak one language and completely retain the ability to
Speaker 3: speak the other. That's how decentralized our language processes in
Speaker 3: the brain.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because that's one of the factors in foreign
Speaker 2: accent syndrome is you could it's not like in a
Speaker 2: case where you might have a stroke and lose the
Speaker 2: ability to speak like you still can speak in perfect
Speaker 2: dialect whatever that dialect is as far as being you know,
Speaker 2: articulate and coherent.
Speaker 3: Oh, right right, Yeah, yeah, so you're yeah exactly, You're
Speaker 3: not like luring your speech. You just sound different and
Speaker 3: like a foreign person saying the same words would, right, yes,
Speaker 3: Oh gotcha. Okay, So there's this four point diagnosis criteria
Speaker 3: that's kind of been deconstructed over the years. But the
Speaker 3: problem with foreign accent syndrome, it's, like you said, there's
Speaker 3: been one hundred, maybe one hundred and fifty cases, So
Speaker 3: it's just totally up in the air as to like
Speaker 3: how to diagnose it, what qualifies as it. And we'll
Speaker 3: talk a little bit about how scientists have dug into
Speaker 3: it thus far after his break, So chuck, foreign accent syndrome,
Speaker 3: it's kind of all over the place right now, right, Yes,
Speaker 3: You've got Lisa Alamiya who woke up from jaw surgery
Speaker 3: with it. Apparently people who have strokes can suffer from
Speaker 3: foreign accent syndrome. And I actually saw one case where
Speaker 3: your foreign accent syndrome and one patient who suffered a
Speaker 3: stroke was cured by a second stroke elsewhere in the brain.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So we have like it's very tough to predict what's
Speaker 3: going to happen when foreign accent syndrome does come about
Speaker 3: and you know, there's been people from Japan who've developed
Speaker 3: Korean accents, or there have been people from Scotland who
Speaker 3: developed South African accents. It's kind of everywhere and all over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can one of the other causes. It can
Speaker 2: be from the onset of MS from multiple sclerosis. This
Speaker 2: one woman that we'll talk about in more detail suffered
Speaker 2: from chronic migraines but had a migraine attack so severe
Speaker 2: that it spurred this and we'll get to her. But
Speaker 2: all of these in a bucket from some sort of
Speaker 2: trauma or an event are called neurogenic type. And for
Speaker 2: a long time they used to think that was the
Speaker 2: only way that you could get for an accident syndrome.
Speaker 3: Right, because remember that Harry Whittaker nineteen eighty two criteria
Speaker 3: specifically says it has to be related to central nervous
Speaker 3: system damage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's another kind called psychogenic, also non organic
Speaker 2: or functional or psychosomatic. But one of the leading experts
Speaker 2: said that they prefer psychogenic. He said because quote this
Speaker 2: term has the advantage of stating positively based on an
Speaker 2: exploration of its causes, that the disorder is a manifestation
Speaker 2: of psychological dis equilibrium like anxiety depression, personality disorder, or
Speaker 2: conversion reaction, right, and you know we're talking about could
Speaker 2: be bipolar disorder, it could be some other form of
Speaker 2: mental illness. And this really kind of rocked. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not a huge community studying this, but the people
Speaker 2: that do are obviously super fascinated by it, and it
Speaker 2: kind of rocked their world when they found out that
Speaker 2: someone that had no head injury, no stroke or anything
Speaker 2: like that would could have something like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they developed first it was neurogenic, then they
Speaker 3: developed psychogenic, and then there's actually a third one. Now
Speaker 3: it's mixed, so apparently it can actually be from a
Speaker 3: psychological issue that possibly could arise from say a brain lesion.
Speaker 3: So it's both of them together, right, working to create
Speaker 3: this foreign accent syndrome, and definitely psychogenic. The psychogenic version
Speaker 3: of foreign accent syndrome differs tremendously from the neurogenic in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways. And number one is the psychogenic
Speaker 3: tends to clear up. It accompanies say like a psychotic
Speaker 3: break or a manic episode or something like that, and
Speaker 3: as the episode wigans or goes away or clears up,
Speaker 3: so too does the foreign accent syndrome. That is not
Speaker 3: the case with neurogenic. With neurogenic, they have no cure whatsoever,
Speaker 3: and basically the only treatment that they can come up
Speaker 3: with is through speech therapy, where speech language pathologists basically
Speaker 3: retrained you to talk the way you did before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also the neurogenic is also much more common.
Speaker 2: Out of the cases, I think it's about eighty six
Speaker 2: percent are from some sort of neurological damage, right, So
Speaker 2: what does that leave fourteen percent or no, unless I
Speaker 2: guess you're accounting for the new super odd one that
Speaker 2: could be both.
Speaker 3: And one of the more famous cases that kind of
Speaker 3: demonstrated that psychogenic FAS was an actual thing happened here
Speaker 3: in America. There's a woman in her mid thirties who
Speaker 3: had a history of schizophrenia and her family and she
Speaker 3: was brought to the er after attacking her mom's landlady.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one's the most recent case actually.
Speaker 3: And she she believed the landlady was practicing voodoo on
Speaker 3: her against her and she attacked the woman and throughout
Speaker 3: all this during this episode, she had taken on a
Speaker 3: British accent and taking a family history, they found that
Speaker 3: number one, she had schizophrenia family. She was diagnosed with
Speaker 3: schizophrenia as a result of this incident, but that she
Speaker 3: had had similar instances before and during these she had
Speaker 3: spoken with the British accent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder. I didn't see anything in there about
Speaker 2: her if she had a I mean, is it another personality?
Speaker 2: Is it multiple personality disorder?
Speaker 3: I don't believe. So that's not what I took from.
Speaker 2: It, because that would make sense, you know, if you
Speaker 2: have a just a British personality that came out that's
Speaker 2: violent maybe or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, remember we I think we've done
Speaker 3: one on schizophrenia before, haven't we.
Speaker 2: I don't know, haven't we definitely.
Speaker 3: Did one on dissociative personality disorder, yeah, which is just
Speaker 3: absolutely fascinating. But I was like you, I kind of noticed, like, hey,
Speaker 3: what about multiple personalities? It doesn't it seems like something
Speaker 3: that would be right up that alley.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they've looked into that.
Speaker 3: But apparently apparently that's not part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Another case that I said we were going to
Speaker 2: get to, This one is really weird and super sad.
Speaker 2: This woman named Sarah Calwell in England. She is the
Speaker 2: one that had the migraine that set it off. And
Speaker 2: this one is super odd because she's an English woman
Speaker 2: who now has a Chinese accent.
Speaker 3: I mean just straight up sounds Chinese.
Speaker 2: And like broken English Chinese.
Speaker 3: Right right, So she sounds like a native I think
Speaker 3: Mandarin speaker is probably what we're thinking of who is
Speaker 3: speaking English. And if you weren't looking like you would
Speaker 3: expect to see, say maybe like a middle aged Chinese
Speaker 3: woman when you looked at the video. Yeah, and no,
Speaker 3: it's like, I don't know, late to mid thirties Caucasian woman. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a native born English speaker who And she's who I
Speaker 3: was thinking of when I was saying for some people,
Speaker 3: it's a really big problem because it's presented a big
Speaker 3: crisis for her identity. She said that she can't look
Speaker 3: in the mirror while she's speaking any longer. She just
Speaker 3: doesn't feel like herself anymore. It's really hit her hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean her case is really sad. It was
Speaker 2: I think twenty ten when she was diagnosed. After this
Speaker 2: migraine incident. In twenty fifteen, she couldn't work anymore, and
Speaker 2: she has a lot and more issues going on than
Speaker 2: just the speech. With these migraines that have come on,
Speaker 2: and she's got a whole range of physical problems that
Speaker 2: she's had to stop work. She's in a wheelchair. Even
Speaker 2: though her limbs completely work, her brain basically can't tell
Speaker 2: her limbs to do what they should do.
Speaker 3: Good Lord, So from migraines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, from I think these really extreme migraines. I think
Speaker 2: they even likened it to like having a stroke. They
Speaker 2: were so severe. So she's had to sell her house
Speaker 2: and I think her husband is afflicted with something too.
Speaker 2: It's just a really really sad case. But you know,
Speaker 2: you can there's all kinds of interviews with her, and
Speaker 2: it's just so strange to hear that accent coming out
Speaker 2: of this white lady.
Speaker 3: It is, and from what I gather, she'd be like, yeah, well,
Speaker 3: imagine how strange it feels coming out of you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know. And you know, I saw videos
Speaker 2: where they would sit down and play her, and before
Speaker 2: I looked up further that she was having even more
Speaker 2: troubled times. It seemed like she was getting a little
Speaker 2: better throughout the interview through therapy because they were playing her.
Speaker 2: One of the things they do is they play old
Speaker 2: recordings of herself and she would sit down and listen
Speaker 2: to them and try and mimic it, and which kind
Speaker 2: of brought up one of my questions is can you
Speaker 2: even mimic an accent? Like you know, people can fake
Speaker 2: an accent, Like, can you even do that? And I
Speaker 2: didn't get an answer on that. But then you're just
Speaker 2: mimicking an accent your entire life too, even if you could. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, so that's problematic on its own. Sure, but
Speaker 2: it seemed like she was getting a little bit better
Speaker 2: in that interview, but apparently not. It's really sad, Yeah
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, like it's bad enough you've got migraines and
Speaker 3: then to have a crisis of identity. Yeah, it's yeah,
Speaker 3: not fair.
Speaker 2: So one of the other things it's really troubling is
Speaker 2: you can't just just go to a neurologist and get
Speaker 2: it cleared up. They're a whole range of doctors that
Speaker 2: you'll probably see along the way, including a neurologist you
Speaker 2: talked about, a speech language pathologist. Go to a clinical
Speaker 2: psychologist to deal with the fallout from everything, maybe a
Speaker 2: neuro psychologist, maybe a radiologist. You might see you six
Speaker 2: and eight doctors and still not get anywhere.
Speaker 3: Right, because I can't do a lot for you. We
Speaker 3: don't know how to treat strokes very well, and once
Speaker 3: damage has occurred in the brain, it can be pretty tough,
Speaker 3: if not impossible, to reverse that damage, right, if it's
Speaker 3: permanently damaged. So, yeah, the idea that you've now gotten
Speaker 3: a foreign accent, they're probably like, that's kind of the
Speaker 3: least to your words. You just had a massive stroke
Speaker 3: or a huge head injury or something like that. But
Speaker 3: what it's revealed to them is not that there's this
Speaker 3: huge mystery, and we have kind of played into it
Speaker 3: a little bit by not revealing this from the outset.
Speaker 3: But you, as a patient with foreign accent syndrome, it
Speaker 3: didn't hit your head and wake up with the foreign accent.
Speaker 3: It's all in the ear of the beholder. The whole
Speaker 3: idea that there is a foreign accent syndrome as the
Speaker 3: way that it stated is false, and we'll talk about
Speaker 3: that after this break. Okay, Chuck, we're back. Yes, So
Speaker 3: I thought I heard you draw in a breath right
Speaker 3: before we bro That might have been did you have
Speaker 3: something to say?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, I think I have a little
Speaker 2: trouble wrapping my head around this whole idea that it's
Speaker 2: only in the ear of the person, because if you
Speaker 2: know that lady clearly has a Chinese accent, it's not oh,
Speaker 2: I'm just hearing it that way.
Speaker 3: So there've actually been studies where they've played a video
Speaker 3: clip of or audio clip of a person with foreign
Speaker 3: accent syndrome to different people and said, you know, where
Speaker 3: do you think this person's from, And the same person
Speaker 3: will get tens of different answers out of tens of
Speaker 3: different people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know which. I mean. That makes sense
Speaker 2: in some cases, I think, but I don't see how
Speaker 2: anyone could hear this woman and say she sounds British
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, no, no, no, she definitely doesn't sound British. But
Speaker 3: that's the point. She sounds Chinese, but she's not actually
Speaker 3: speaking in a Chinese accent. She didn't hit her head
Speaker 3: and wake up with a Chinese accent. What happened was
Speaker 3: she got these series of migraines, probably had some sort
Speaker 3: of stroke, and a region of her brain that controls
Speaker 3: the really intricate process of prosody, of making your tongue
Speaker 3: do certain things to intonate an accent, certain words, in
Speaker 3: certain ways that make up your accent and your dialect.
Speaker 3: Overall that got damaged, and so now she can't control
Speaker 3: it in the way she used to before, it comes
Speaker 3: out sounding differently. And to you somebody who has heard
Speaker 3: people speak in a Chinese accent before, it sounds like
Speaker 3: a Chinese accent. That's the difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lets, I don't get that. What I do get though,
Speaker 2: is we take second nature just when we open our
Speaker 2: mouth we talk. We don't realize the complex series of
Speaker 2: events that's going on to make your voice come out
Speaker 2: the way it does. So you know you're well in
Speaker 2: the brain, they think, And again, the mysteries of the brain,
Speaker 2: how you create speech is really complex and involves all
Speaker 2: kinds of areas of the brain, but specifically damaged in
Speaker 2: the left hemisphere and the cerebral artery they know a
Speaker 2: lot of times can cause foreign accent syndrome. But when
Speaker 2: you're speaking, you're using your tongue, using your lips, your jaw,
Speaker 2: your larynx, and the way all these things combine and
Speaker 2: who you are is gonna make you have and we
Speaker 2: should do one on accents, period, but it's gonna control
Speaker 2: how your speech comes out. So and the you know,
Speaker 2: the one example they use in here is if you know,
Speaker 2: you have a little too much to drink those, you know,
Speaker 2: you might lose some of that muscle control and you
Speaker 2: might slur your words or talk funny er differently. Right,
Speaker 2: So that's a pretty pretty basic way of understanding it.
Speaker 2: But I know, vowels are are sort of a big
Speaker 2: deal when it comes to foreign accent syndrome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you if you say ah instead of A,
Speaker 3: or you substitute continents like R for L. Right, so
Speaker 3: you're you know, what's that? What were they singing jingle
Speaker 3: bells on oh no deck the halls?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, on a Christmas story? Christmas story. So if you
Speaker 3: were a Caucasian English speaker and you damaged your brain
Speaker 3: in a way that the part of your brain responsible
Speaker 3: for forming l's now formed rs instead. To other English
Speaker 3: speakers who'd heard native Chinese speakers, you would sound like
Speaker 3: you had a Chinese accent, because that's what people who
Speaker 3: speak Chinese do when they're speaking English. So you didn't
Speaker 3: actually adopt a Chinese accent, You're just creating sounds in
Speaker 3: the same way that somebody who was a native Chinese
Speaker 3: speaker would.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I see what they're getting at with
Speaker 2: all this. To me, it's a little bit splitting hairs.
Speaker 2: I think that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3: I think the difference is this chuck with your accent.
Speaker 3: Your native accent, your native dialect is the result of
Speaker 3: your exposure to your environment right lifelong, all the people
Speaker 3: around you, all the stuff you've learned, all the things
Speaker 3: you've heard. It creates your dialect. Right when you suffer
Speaker 3: foreign accent syndrome, your dialect, your brain is damaged so
Speaker 3: that you can't produce that anymore, and you just kind
Speaker 3: of haphazardly producing something else you don't actually follow. So,
Speaker 3: like if you took Sarah Calwill's language and had her
Speaker 3: read a passage from a book, and then you had
Speaker 3: a native Chinese speaker, typical accented Mandarin speaker read that
Speaker 3: same passage, it would not be the exact same thing.
Speaker 3: There'd be all sorts of derivations and deviations from that
Speaker 3: normal Mandarin accent because Sarah Calwell's brain was damaged in
Speaker 3: a certain way that makes it a totally unique accent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that, But that happens within the Mandarin
Speaker 2: accent between people too.
Speaker 3: You're not letting this one go.
Speaker 2: Are you just don't get it? One thing I do
Speaker 2: get is that there's no like and this is probably
Speaker 2: what's so frustrated, or one of the things that's so
Speaker 2: frustrating is it's not like they wake up with a
Speaker 2: new cultural identity either, right. I mean, this woman still
Speaker 2: wants to have her tea and biscuits every afternoon. But
Speaker 2: when she says that, she says it with Chuck would
Speaker 2: call it a Chinese accent. A neurologist would say, well,
Speaker 2: you're just hearing that, right, So you know, like you said,
Speaker 2: people suffer a bit from their own like sense of self, right,
Speaker 2: you know, because I see, here's what I wonder is
Speaker 2: in there. Do they hear it in their head as
Speaker 2: their own regular accent?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. No. I think it sounds off
Speaker 3: to them, and I think it's probably distressing because they're like, wait,
Speaker 3: let me say that again, and they still say it
Speaker 3: what they perceive is the wrong way, because apparently one
Speaker 3: of the hallmarks of foreign accent syndrome is the errors
Speaker 3: are the different is that they make pro in their
Speaker 3: prosody is predictable, which makes it like an accent. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's what an accent is is you're going to drop
Speaker 3: your t's or replace the T with the th with
Speaker 3: a D just about every time, or add that R
Speaker 3: when you say wash, Yeah, exactly Like That's it's a
Speaker 3: predictable thing, and that's part of foreign accent senterlemen. It
Speaker 3: starts to happen in predictable ways too, So I would guess, yeah,
Speaker 3: it sounds off to them as well well.
Speaker 2: Because the reason I say that is because when like
Speaker 2: and I think I've talked about this, when my grandfather
Speaker 2: had a stroke, he still talked, but it just came
Speaker 2: out as gibberish. But in his head he was saying
Speaker 2: the things that he was trying to say, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the most frustrating things I think
Speaker 2: after a stroke victim is I remember seeing him talk
Speaker 2: and getting so frustrated. He would just you know, say
Speaker 2: things out loud and it would come out as gibbish
Speaker 2: to us, but in his head he's still saying you know,
Speaker 2: his English words, right.
Speaker 3: It's got to make you feel trapped in your body.
Speaker 2: Yeah. However, fas is a little all over the map
Speaker 2: because there have been other weird cases. Because we've been
Speaker 2: saying this whole time, there's not a new identity. It's
Speaker 2: the same you're saying the same words and everything. But
Speaker 2: there have been cases where people do substitute out words,
Speaker 2: like you would say lift instead of an elevator.
Speaker 3: Right, that's like the psychogenic version.
Speaker 2: I know. It's just so confusing.
Speaker 3: Well it almost makes me think, like, so before there
Speaker 3: was nothing but neurogenic foreign accent syndrome, right, everything else
Speaker 3: was you're just crazy. Now they recognize that they're psychogenic
Speaker 3: fas as well. I think what's gonna happen with more
Speaker 3: and more study, They're gonna just diverge into two totally
Speaker 3: different syndromes.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, that makes sense, you know.
Speaker 3: I think they're gonna be like, that's actually not the
Speaker 3: same thing, something totally different. Neurogenic foreign accent syndrome is
Speaker 3: its own thing, and psychogenic is something else entirely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll just make up a new name. Yeah. This
Speaker 2: one other case I thought was interesting about the Dutch woman,
Speaker 2: which one she was Dutch is Dutch, and she developed
Speaker 2: a French accent, but she spoke Dutch using French syntax
Speaker 2: and occasionally French words as if she was a French
Speaker 2: person learning Dutch, and it turns out that she was
Speaker 2: a Dutch language teacher who taught French people to speak Dutch. Right,
Speaker 2: And I don't know what's her psychogenic or neurogenic.
Speaker 3: It would have to be psychogenic because neurogenic has basically
Speaker 3: that original Harry Whittaker criteria.
Speaker 2: Like you, you'd never use different words and things.
Speaker 3: Well, it has to not be related to the patient's
Speaker 3: ability to speak a foreign language.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, So like that.
Speaker 3: She would be technically canceled out from neurogenic for that one.
Speaker 3: And it would also it didn't have anything to do
Speaker 3: with central nervous system damage, which is again that's why
Speaker 3: I think it's gonna end up being its own thing.
Speaker 2: Man, So interesting? Is what else you got?
Speaker 3: Uh? That's all I've got? Man, Isn't that enough?
Speaker 2: I think? So?
Speaker 3: Man, any language stuff? Anytime we talk about language in
Speaker 3: the brain, I guess neurolinguistics. I just I turned to Goo.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting to me. That's what happens when something
Speaker 3: interests me. I turned to Goo. If you want to
Speaker 3: turn to go and learn more about foreign accent syndrome,
Speaker 3: you can type those words in the search bart HowStuffWorks
Speaker 3: dot com. And since I said that, it's time for
Speaker 3: Chuck administrator detail.
Speaker 2: How was that?
Speaker 3: That was great? Man? So Chuck. Yes, we've got some
Speaker 3: more people to thank for sending us some nice stuff.
Speaker 2: That's right. I'm gonna start off with Nathan for Lazzo.
Speaker 3: That's good. Uh.
Speaker 2: He sent us some really lovely hand drawn calendars and
Speaker 2: bookmarks and you can find those at wildlife dot Wildlife
Speaker 2: dot Marini for Loatso dot com dot au and that's
Speaker 2: m A r I N I F E r l
Speaker 2: a z z o dot com dot a U. And
Speaker 2: it was really really beautiful work and it's it's a
Speaker 2: cool thing because a portion of every sale is donated
Speaker 2: to a nonprofit wildlife organization.
Speaker 3: Very nice. I think you handled that foreign accent very well.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I want to say thanks big time to Robert Coombs
Speaker 3: or Combs from Whitetail Coffee for the amazing coffees, especially like, seriously,
Speaker 3: this is a really good coffee, especially the Laderis and
Speaker 3: Lamarella and that's white Tail t a l E coffee.
Speaker 3: It's just an amazing coffee subscription service that you should
Speaker 3: check out.
Speaker 2: Well, I got a couple of more coffees. I'll just
Speaker 2: knock them both out. You have one sitting, actually have
Speaker 2: two of them sitting on your desk right now, my friend.
Speaker 3: Wait to go grab them.
Speaker 2: True Stone Coffee Roasters from Saint Paul, Minnesota send us
Speaker 2: their medium blend and I can't vouch for the taste
Speaker 2: yet because it just got here, but it smells good.
Speaker 2: And then Devin from True Coffee Roasters in Fitchburg, Wisconsin
Speaker 2: send us dark roasted Sumatra. And in Mexico, Aleutra. I'm sorry, Altura, nice,
Speaker 2: thanks a lot, got coffee coming out her ears.
Speaker 3: That's great. That's a good place to be, but we're
Speaker 3: not gonna have diabetes. My friend now, Doug Fuch sent
Speaker 3: us a beautiful illustrated card. Thanks for that, Doug, thanks
Speaker 3: for saying Hi.
Speaker 2: Meg from Seattle, she sent me a card about Laurn's
Speaker 2: passing my cat which I lost last year, which is
Speaker 2: very very sweet. And while I'm on that, Buckley, my
Speaker 2: old boy passed away a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 2: everyone on Facebook was beyond supportive and sweet and that
Speaker 2: really helped out. So thanks for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, from everybody listening to you, Chuck, we send our condolences.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It was very dark time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's see pressed him Pope. He sent us some
Speaker 3: amazing chocolates Chuck from V Chocolates V. Just the letter
Speaker 3: V Chocolates dot Com. Seriously, it's good stuff. I feel bad.
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm running around. I'm a little bit sweet.
Speaker 2: That's okay. We'll always come back to them, Okay. Our
Speaker 2: buddy Jeff Barney was kind enough. And I still haven't tried.
Speaker 2: It's in my fridge, but you said it's the best.
Speaker 2: He sent us QP Japanese mayo.
Speaker 3: Oh it's so good.
Speaker 2: Because of my love for mayonnaise and.
Speaker 3: Chuck, you may never go back to American mayo again.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm finishing up a a gallon of.
Speaker 3: Dukes this afternoon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just gonna gonna shoot it down, and then
Speaker 2: I'm gonna dive into the QP and see what's going
Speaker 2: on there. Got to see what the difference is.
Speaker 3: It's subtle, but do you You'll notice You'll say, wow,
Speaker 3: this is actually really really good man.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, thanks to Jeff Barney for that.
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot to Tim and Joe from Primer Stories.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember, but our animal rights
Speaker 3: double parter tied into an essay I wrote on Primer
Speaker 3: Stories dot com and they sent t shirts to say
Speaker 3: thanks for that. So thanks back for you guys. Support.
Speaker 2: Ian Newton of the Baltimore Whiskey Company. Send us some
Speaker 2: Ginger Apple Liqueur and jin.
Speaker 3: Yes, thanks a lot. Uh Don Kent who last gave
Speaker 3: us some Pliny the Elder before, which was nice.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Also send us a bunch of soilent, and thank you
Speaker 3: also to Soilent. It's so well the company who heard
Speaker 3: our soilent episode and said, you guys haven't tried soilent. Here,
Speaker 3: here's some soilent, and thank you for that soilent. That
Speaker 3: was very nice.
Speaker 2: I think they got what they wanted out of this,
Speaker 2: which is for us to say soilent twelve times soilent.
Speaker 2: This came in today Thomas Craigil car k R E
Speaker 2: G E L. He sent me a friggin' monocle.
Speaker 3: Oh that's neat.
Speaker 2: And he heard me talking about my eyes going and
Speaker 2: how I just need him to read things close up,
Speaker 2: and he said, buddy, here's what you need to do
Speaker 2: because you will one day embarrass your daughter like I
Speaker 2: embarrassed my children. You need to rock a monocle.
Speaker 3: And it's a monocle, so is he like a trained
Speaker 3: optometrist who can like no, no, So he just gave
Speaker 3: you a piece of glass that's going to ruin your
Speaker 3: eye over time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I tried it and it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like a reader. It works about the
Speaker 2: same as my prescription. But he uses one. He sent
Speaker 2: a little picture of himself. Yeah, I guess I should
Speaker 2: plug the company. It's near sights. Monocles is what he used.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I got a monocle now.
Speaker 3: Nice, Chuck, Chuck, I'm gonna use it. Your new nickname
Speaker 3: is Pringles Guy. Okay, I've got someone else, Pringles Guy.
Speaker 3: Janelle Samara send us a copy of her book Our
Speaker 3: Only Hope, Thank you, and congratulations on writing a book.
Speaker 2: Bridget mass Off M A. S. S. O. T. H.
Speaker 2: Send us some really cute along with an extra large
Speaker 2: handwritten note. So's some really cute Josh and Chuck cutouts,
Speaker 2: like kind of paper cut and paste cutouts. Nice, and
Speaker 2: yours is on your desk.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: We got to get out of this room, and I
Speaker 2: do go over to your desk. You got a bounty,
Speaker 2: Francis Dela pause.
Speaker 3: So you know, there's like a whole group of people
Speaker 3: out there who believe in writing letters, beautiful letters with
Speaker 3: fountain pens and all that, and Francis Dela Pause is
Speaker 3: one of them, send us a beautiful handwritten letter, and
Speaker 3: you also apparently customarily send what's called a flat gift.
Speaker 3: And they sent a postcard the Sad Life of Sad Clown,
Speaker 3: which is great. Sad clowns are great.
Speaker 2: Well, I got a few letters. Actually, I'll just knock
Speaker 2: those out because Sandra maybe this was because of International
Speaker 2: Correspondence Writing Month that we got these, because apparently that happened.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, But Sandra sent us a nice handwritten letter
Speaker 2: in honor of that specifically, and then Austin from Bakersfield
Speaker 2: sent us a very nice handwritten note. And then Kristen
Speaker 2: Cook sent us a Valentine's State card to all of us,
Speaker 2: including Harry nole Man that not Harry Knowles of ain't
Speaker 2: it cool news, but our own Noll who was just
Speaker 2: Harry right.
Speaker 3: We got some other ones to chuck. We got a
Speaker 3: lighthouse postcard from Big Sable Point from Teresa. We got
Speaker 3: a couple of Christmas cards from the Johnson Alloman family
Speaker 3: and Tess Sullivan and her family, and I guess in
Speaker 3: part because the national what is it National Writing Month
Speaker 3: or letter Writing Month?
Speaker 2: International Correspondence Writing Month?
Speaker 3: Exactly. Noel Verosa, No sorry, Noel Versosa, Noel Verzosa.
Speaker 2: It's handwritten. You can't you know?
Speaker 3: I got it that last time, Noel. Noel Verzosa wrote
Speaker 3: us a nice hand letter, handwritten letter and fountain pen.
Speaker 2: I've got two more, Megan Moon Waltzman. And that's Megan
Speaker 2: with two g's. Oddly, she sent us a copy of
Speaker 2: this really cool thing she made. It's a book. It's
Speaker 2: called Songbook, a book of music for all levels, all ages,
Speaker 2: and it is eleven songs kind of written out as
Speaker 2: chords and things and illustrated for different instruments, like there'll
Speaker 2: be a song for guitar, an intro song for banjo
Speaker 2: and for cello, and it's got these cool pictures and
Speaker 2: then you can download these songs and kind of figure
Speaker 2: it's I mean, it says for all ages, but it
Speaker 2: seems like it'd be great to give a kid, right,
Speaker 2: so that out it's very worthwhile.
Speaker 3: I've got two more to finish than two one. Austin
Speaker 3: Doyle sent me an amazing oil crayon painting, which I
Speaker 3: assume will inflate in value very rapidly once Austin dies.
Speaker 2: Hopefully that doesn't happen, because Doyle is one of our
Speaker 2: oldest and I don't mean by age, but one of
Speaker 2: our longest time listeners.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He's a great guy. I mean like when he
Speaker 3: dies of old age, I just planned to outlive him.
Speaker 2: That's okay, so I can cash.
Speaker 3: In on the painting he made me. And then Ben
Speaker 3: and Aaron Gibson send us the Japanese car magnets that
Speaker 3: signify an elderly driver or a team driver, which we've
Speaker 3: talked about before.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I remember those.
Speaker 3: Thanks dudes.
Speaker 2: I got one more in this one. Boy. You have
Speaker 2: no idea what's waiting in there. You just came right
Speaker 2: into the recording studio for a change. Yeah, on your
Speaker 2: desk right now, Josh, I can't wait. You have a
Speaker 2: handmade cutting board. Awesome, and it's really really nice. This
Speaker 2: is from Christopher at the timber Wolf, and it's just
Speaker 2: you know, it's gorgeous. You send a couple of these
Speaker 2: in and they're really really nice. Nice, So you got
Speaker 2: to you gotta take care of it though. I left
Speaker 2: the instructions for you.
Speaker 3: I got a lot of stuff to carry out of here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need a someone needs to send Josh a wheelbarrow.
Speaker 3: Or a radio flyer.
Speaker 2: Oh, I got one of those for my kid. It's nice.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, the old red wagon.
Speaker 3: Like the real one. The radio flyer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they still make them nice.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you again to everybody who's sent us so
Speaker 3: much great stuff. We appreciate it big time, And if
Speaker 3: you want to get in touch with this, you can
Speaker 3: send us both an emails. The Stuff podcast at housetuffworks
Speaker 3: dot com and has always joined us at our home
Speaker 3: on the web, Stuff Youshould Know dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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