WEBVTT - Selects: How Foreign Accent Syndrome Works 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:05.120 Good afternoon, GUVNA. It's Chucky here on a Saturday, and 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:08.000 I'm going to pick a selection called how. 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.200 Foreign Accent Syndrome Works. 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:13.039 No idea or what this is about, but it is 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:17.799 from March twenty eight, twenty seventeen, and I hope you 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:18.320 enjoy it. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:27.400 Good day. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:32.920 of iHeartRadio. 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:36.960 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.879 there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here is always 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:45.320 So it's stuff you should know, Stuff you should know. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.120 You should have said that in a British accent. 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:52.720 It's stuff you should know. Ay, how's that? 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.120 It was great? You're a regular rich. 0:00:54.920 --> 0:01:03.320 Little Remember the arrest development little subplot where Charlie's Theren 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.120 was thought to be a British spy. Oh yeah, what 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:09.720 was uh for British eyes only? 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:12.679 Yeah? But what was the name of her character? 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.160 Mister F, mister F. That's right, that's right. 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:18.920 I knew I had some like They said that every time. Right, 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:25.959 it's pretty funny. She's great, Yes, she was pretty lady, Funny, smart, Yeah, 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:26.520 good actor? 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:28.080 What else? 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.080 That's all I got on her? She can macro may 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:33.240 Oh really, I don't know. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:34.120 I just assume. 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.400 Okay, this is left to a great start. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:45.360 Uh is it's unusual? Odd even you could say that 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.160 you suggested I say the intro in a British accent 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.080 because we're talking about foreign accents today. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.840 Chuck, that's right, it was coy m. 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:58.280 I see now it makes sense. 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:05.000 Yes, and we're specific not talking about There's a thing 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:09.640 sometimes that certain people do when they meet someone with 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:15.440 an accent different than their own, right where they accidentally 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.520 or sometimes purposely adopt it momentarily. 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:21.840 Yes, it's called code switching. 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:27.080 My mom's done this before that. I remember it happened 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.239 when I was a kid. My brother and I thought 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:30.040 it was so funny. 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:31.799 Yeah. 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.600 Yeah, and it seems like it's usually a parent of 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:41.160 an embarrassed child. Sure is there an explanation behind it? 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:41.680 Or yeah? 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:42.000 Yeah? 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:46.640 So this is from what I understand. This is the point. Right, So, 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:51.560 our accents are extremely personal. They're part of like us individually, 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.160 but they also signal our membership in different groups. Right, So, 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.960 like a farmer is going to talk differently from a stockbroker, 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.560 and a farmer from Georgia is going to talk a 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:08.880 lot differently than a stockbroker from Portland, Oregon. Right, okay, 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.840 because that's the other stock market seat. Yeah, you thought 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.440 I was going to say New York I Nope. So 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.639 when we when we code switch, when we meet other 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:25.000 people and take on their their way of talking, it's 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.880 called code switching, and I think it's a way of signaling, hey, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.640 we have something in common. I don't want you to 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:35.160 be distracted by it's. Yeah, my overalls with no shirt 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.440 on are distracting enough. I don't want you to be 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.120 distracted by my accent too. So I think it is 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.320 a way of saying, like, hey, i'm, I'm, I'm, we 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.280 have something in common. The thing is, accents are such 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.960 a part of group identity that if you do that 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.760 in front of some other members of your group, whether 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.600 it's your family or your friends or whatever. 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:56.080 They're going to tease you. 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.040 They are going to tease you, guaranteed. And one of 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.680 the reasons why is because what they're doing, consciously or 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:07.400 otherwise is maintaining the borders of their own group's identity. Yeah, 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.440 they're saying, don't put on airs, don't think you're fancy, 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.880 don't think you're just like that guy, You're one of us. 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.440 And making fun of somebody who adopts someone else's accent 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:19.120 is a way of doing that. It's a way of 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.680 maintaining group divisions and borders. Well, really, when you do 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.840 kind of adopt someone else's accent, I think one of 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.240 the things that you are doing is trying to make 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.680 the foreigner, the stranger feel more comfortable. And having met 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.000 your mom, I guarantee that's what she was doing. 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.000 Well. I just remember the only one I remember specifically, 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.800 and you know, you just had these random childhood moments 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.240 that sort of stick with you was we were in 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.720 Florida and we were talking with an Irish woman. I 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.640 believe she may have been from England, but I think 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:57.400 she was Irish. And the other thing too, is you know, 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.400 I don't think my mom had probably talked to a 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.520 lot of our Irish people at that point. You know, 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.720 she's from West Tennessee. They moved to Georgia. We didn't 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.320 have Irish people all over the place. She wasn't super 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.599 well traveled back then, although she is much more now, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:12.560 so it was probably a bit novel to her. And 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.200 I remember very specifically the woman said something about going 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:20.320 to Disney instead of Disney World, and my mom said 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:21.839 she got kind of proper, and she says, you know, 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.240 we haven't been to Disney yet. And I remember my 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.920 brother and I just thought that was so funny. Instead 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:28.640 of saying Disney World, did. 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.400 You guys make fun of her in front of the woman? 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.320 No, I don't think so. We may have laughed a 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.040 little under our breath, but I mean, I don't think 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.799 we I don't think we even teased her. I'm teasing 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.520 her now a bit, sure, but I don't think like 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.320 we made fun of her really. I think we just 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.000 kind of, like my brother and I want to do, 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.320 very quietly, looked at each other and in that way 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:51.040 that brothers do. 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.400 Right, and then talk to each other like the kids 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:54.760 an Escape from which Mountain? 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.880 Yeah? Were they telepathic? Yeah, but it's funny. I was 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.560 listening to the Great Judge John Hodgman podcast, Oh Yeah 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.760 with her pal John and Jesse Thorne bailiff Jesse, and 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:08.839 they had an actual case a few weeks ago that 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:14.960 was very funny where this this mom does this on purpose. 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.680 She's a trained actor and loves to put on accents 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.440 when she goes to places, and the daughter was just 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.320 she took her to the internet court and was just 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.920 like stop doing this, like you've got to stop doing this. 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:34.160 And the mom's whole thing, she was very just fun 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.880 and whimsical and having a lot of fun with it. 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.440 So it was really hard to rule against her. But 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.080 I think codgmen ultimately did rule against her. 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:45.720 He's tough but fair. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:47.839 Well. I think his whole thing was, like you know, 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.520 I think he ruled partially in her favor, like you 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:53.600 got to let him know where you're from. And you 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.279 can't do it to like waiters and service people because 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.120 their job is to like take your dumb jokes and 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.200 have a stiff upper lip about it, and it just 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.320 kind of makes their job harder if they think maybe 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.280 you're making fun of them, and you know, like you 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.160 may not realize the unintended consequence of this is somebody 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.640 may feel uncomfortable that they have to put up with this. 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.480 Wow, that was it was like a really serious turn 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:20.880 at the end. 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:22.440 There, No, it did. I mean, you know this was 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.240 great about that show is they're funny cases, but he 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:26.520 adjudicates seriously. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.280 I think, oh yeah, and then Jesse always shoots his 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:30.960 gun off at the end. Yeah. 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:36.520 Beeah. So anyway, I just thought that was pretty weird 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.120 that this article came up and then that episode had 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.080 just aired. But that's different than what we were talking 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.680 about totally. Like I started saying, this is not that 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:50.320 at all. This is a legitimate, super rare. This reminded 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.720 me of alien hand syndrome and its rarity. Yeah, because 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.960 I've seen different numbers, but the most I've seen is 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:03.160 about one hundred and fifty described official cases of foreign 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:04.360 accent syndrome. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.240 Right, that's super rare for sure. 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:07.800 Yeah. 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.480 And what makes it different from somebody taking on the 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.040 affect or dialect or accent of somebody else, someone taking 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:20.720 the piss, right, this is where you can't stop. It's involuntary. Yeah, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.680 and you know it sounds weird, it's an exotic and 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.280 you just want to like poke the person who's doing 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:27.880 that in the neck to be like what are you 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.360 doing there? But if you really start to dig into 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.680 the actual cases, it's sad in a lot of a 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.600 lot of cases. Oh yeah, Because again, your accent, what 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:40.959 you sound like, makes up a part of your personality. 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:45.000 So if you are if it changes on you involuntarily, 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.480 it can be quite traumatic. For some people, you could 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:49.160 have an identity crisis of sorts. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:51.960 Yeah, so I guess we should go ahead and talk 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:53.679 about a couple of cases so people know what we're 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.959 talking about. The first one mentioned in our own article 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.160 is really interesting for a few reasons, and it's the 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.520 most recent case that's documented. Oh I'm sorry it's not 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.160 the most recent, but it is fairly recent. A woman 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:11.360 named Lisa Alamia, she had jaw surgery because of an overbite, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.240 and then when she came out of surgery, even though 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:16.679 she was from Texas and had never been to England, 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.160 she spoke with a British accent and. 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:25.559 She's like, right, bloody hell and way, I need our 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.920 British listeners to write in and tell me how good 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:30.040 my British accent is. 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.400 Okay, Well, I'm known on the show for doing the 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:33.960 bad accent, so I'm glad you're taking up. 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.960 No, yours are good. I don't know minor. 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.120 They verge on decent at times. 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:45.360 Well, there's cartoonish and stereotypical, really really good cartoonish stereotypical 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:47.439 versions of accents. 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:49.880 So she woke up had that accent, and her husband 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.360 and three kids thought it was a joke. She had 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.400 only been outside the country to go to Mexico and 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.800 it was a real thing called foreign accent syndrome. 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:03.280 Yes, I've ever been to England. She apparently probably had 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.319 seen British people on TV kind of thing. But her 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.720 case actually is the opposite of what I was saying. 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:15.640 She was apparently quite shy before, and now she has 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.000 something to talk about a conversation opener. I guess she's 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.040 a little more chatty than before. 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:22.520 Interesting, Yeah, it is. 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:26.920 It's the opposite of some other people who have really 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.720 experienced a crisis. As a result, she's like, well, I 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.360 sound British now, I guess I should talk more than before. 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.600 So she sounds like a drunk cockneque chimney sweep pretty much. 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:37.040 And she does sound cognity to me. 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.040 Oh really, I didn't hear I didn't see this one 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:39.680 on YouTube. 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.680 So yeah, we should say, you know, this is kind 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.360 of like optical illusions. It's one thing to talk about it. 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.080 You need to actually go see and hear these people talking. Yeah, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.520 if you just look up Lisa Alamia A La m 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.360 i A and you will find plenty of interviews with her. 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.120 She's she's, like you said, fairly recent. There's one that's 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.319 quite a famous case. Maybe the most famous because it 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.960 was the one that put foreign accent syndrome on the map, 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.240 even though it was before the term was coined. 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.440 Yeah, this one had a much darker turn because it 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:18.160 was during World War Two. A Norwegian woman named Astrid 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:23.920 suffered injury and the ironies here are really sad. She 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.600 suffered a brain injury from shrapnel from a German bomb 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:30.840 and a bombing raid, and then when she came to 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:36.400 she had a German accent. Right, very not fun for her. 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.960 No, because the Germans were occupying Norway at the time, right, Yeah, 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.040 so people she didn't really know, we're like, oh, hey, 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:44.079 German spy. 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.480 Yeah you want some milk? 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:47.800 No milk for you? 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.440 Yeah, she was shunned. She couldn't even speak German, but 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.600 she had that accent and was obviously very distraught by this. 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:02.160 And she went to a neurologist name Yorg Rman Monrad Krone. 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:07.320 Nice job, it's a great name. And he coined the 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:13.320 first term for this, which is dysprosody, which is prosody 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.120 is like the tone and rhythm of your speech. Yeah, 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.400 and the prefix discs obviously is like abnormal or ill, 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:22.560 And that didn't catch on too well. 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.720 It didn't, but as we'll see, he kind of nailed 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.960 what the problem was. Yeah, because you know, the non 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.880 grammatical parts of speech, the prosody are what is affected 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.840 when you have foreign accent syndrome. You have what appears 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:46.400 to be a foreign accent, but usually your vocabulary, your syntax, 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:51.000 your grammar remains unchanged. It's all the little nuances that 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.120 make up your accent or your intonation or the rhythm 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.600 of your speech that are affected and has changed. So 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.560 dysprosody is actually like the perfect name for the syndrome. 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.960 Yeah, but foreign accent syndrome is way more catchy in 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:08.280 that Oh it's sexy. In nineteen eighty two, neurologist named 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.480 Harry Whittaker came up with that. So Whittaker coined it 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.880 in the eighties. I think nineteen eighty two was when 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:16.480 he coined that official term. 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.240 Right, And he was a neurolinguist who did some pretty 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.480 serious research into foreign accent syndrome. He actually came up 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:28.240 with a four point criteria for diagnosing it, and the 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:30.520 number one is that the accent has to be considered 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.080 by the patient, the people the patient knows, and the 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.800 researcher of the doctor to be to sound like a 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:39.120 foreign accent, right. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.520 Yeah, pretty straightforward from what they are. 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:46.480 Yeah, well that's number two. It has to be different 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:51.280 from the patient's former prosody, noticeably different. Number three, it 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.240 has to be related to central nervous system damage and 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:57.119 this one has come under fire under the last few years. 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.240 And then four it can't be related to to a 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:04.400 patient's ability to speak a foreign language already. Right, So 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.360 there's actually a condition, it's astounding to me. It's called 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:15.880 bilingual aphasia, or there's also polyglotaphasia. And apparently if you 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.720 suffer a stroke or brain injury or some other trauma 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.640 or insult to your central nervous system and you know 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.040 more than one language, you may completely lose the ability 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.280 to speak one language and completely retain the ability to 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:36.280 speak the other. That's how decentralized our language processes in 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:36.720 the brain. 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.280 Well, yeah, because that's one of the factors in foreign 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.760 accent syndrome is you could it's not like in a 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:46.320 case where you might have a stroke and lose the 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:50.160 ability to speak like you still can speak in perfect 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.880 dialect whatever that dialect is as far as being you know, 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:55.120 articulate and coherent. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.200 Oh, right right, Yeah, yeah, so you're yeah exactly, You're 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.400 not like luring your speech. You just sound different and 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.280 like a foreign person saying the same words would, right, yes, 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:11.360 Oh gotcha. Okay, So there's this four point diagnosis criteria 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.320 that's kind of been deconstructed over the years. But the 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.320 problem with foreign accent syndrome, it's, like you said, there's 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.320 been one hundred, maybe one hundred and fifty cases, So 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.280 it's just totally up in the air as to like 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.280 how to diagnose it, what qualifies as it. And we'll 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.160 talk a little bit about how scientists have dug into 0:15:31.200 --> 0:16:00.000 it thus far after his break, So chuck, foreign accent syndrome, 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.360 it's kind of all over the place right now, right, Yes, 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:08.920 You've got Lisa Alamiya who woke up from jaw surgery 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:14.880 with it. Apparently people who have strokes can suffer from 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.960 foreign accent syndrome. And I actually saw one case where 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.320 your foreign accent syndrome and one patient who suffered a 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.840 stroke was cured by a second stroke elsewhere in the brain. 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:28.480 Wow. 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:33.840 So we have like it's very tough to predict what's 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.480 going to happen when foreign accent syndrome does come about 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.400 and you know, there's been people from Japan who've developed 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.120 Korean accents, or there have been people from Scotland who 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:52.200 developed South African accents. It's kind of everywhere and all over. 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.960 Yeah, you can one of the other causes. It can 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:59.800 be from the onset of MS from multiple sclerosis. This 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.480 one woman that we'll talk about in more detail suffered 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.320 from chronic migraines but had a migraine attack so severe 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:09.919 that it spurred this and we'll get to her. But 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.359 all of these in a bucket from some sort of 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:18.520 trauma or an event are called neurogenic type. And for 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:20.479 a long time they used to think that was the 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.840 only way that you could get for an accident syndrome. 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.879 Right, because remember that Harry Whittaker nineteen eighty two criteria 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.720 specifically says it has to be related to central nervous 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:32.760 system damage. 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:38.320 Yeah, so there's another kind called psychogenic, also non organic 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:43.000 or functional or psychosomatic. But one of the leading experts 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:47.240 said that they prefer psychogenic. He said because quote this 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.679 term has the advantage of stating positively based on an 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.120 exploration of its causes, that the disorder is a manifestation 0:17:54.320 --> 0:18:00.840 of psychological dis equilibrium like anxiety depression, personality disorder, or 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:06.760 conversion reaction, right, and you know we're talking about could 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.119 be bipolar disorder, it could be some other form of 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.800 mental illness. And this really kind of rocked. I mean, 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:16.560 it's not a huge community studying this, but the people 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.720 that do are obviously super fascinated by it, and it 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.359 kind of rocked their world when they found out that 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.520 someone that had no head injury, no stroke or anything 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.679 like that would could have something like this. 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.800 Yeah, so they developed first it was neurogenic, then they 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.439 developed psychogenic, and then there's actually a third one. Now 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.800 it's mixed, so apparently it can actually be from a 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:42.439 psychological issue that possibly could arise from say a brain lesion. 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.200 So it's both of them together, right, working to create 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.960 this foreign accent syndrome, and definitely psychogenic. The psychogenic version 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:55.439 of foreign accent syndrome differs tremendously from the neurogenic in 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.480 a lot of ways. And number one is the psychogenic 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.000 tends to clear up. It accompanies say like a psychotic 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:07.080 break or a manic episode or something like that, and 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.320 as the episode wigans or goes away or clears up, 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.359 so too does the foreign accent syndrome. That is not 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.679 the case with neurogenic. With neurogenic, they have no cure whatsoever, 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.600 and basically the only treatment that they can come up 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:25.600 with is through speech therapy, where speech language pathologists basically 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.520 retrained you to talk the way you did before. 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:33.280 Yeah, it's also the neurogenic is also much more common. 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:34.960 Out of the cases, I think it's about eighty six 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.199 percent are from some sort of neurological damage, right, So 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.879 what does that leave fourteen percent or no, unless I 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:46.560 guess you're accounting for the new super odd one that 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:47.520 could be both. 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.639 And one of the more famous cases that kind of 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:56.520 demonstrated that psychogenic FAS was an actual thing happened here 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.160 in America. There's a woman in her mid thirties who 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.720 had a history of schizophrenia and her family and she 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.639 was brought to the er after attacking her mom's landlady. 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:08.920 Yeah, this one's the most recent case actually. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.720 And she she believed the landlady was practicing voodoo on 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:18.600 her against her and she attacked the woman and throughout 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.359 all this during this episode, she had taken on a 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.719 British accent and taking a family history, they found that 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.919 number one, she had schizophrenia family. She was diagnosed with 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.320 schizophrenia as a result of this incident, but that she 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.640 had had similar instances before and during these she had 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:36.200 spoken with the British accent. 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:38.840 Yeah, I wonder. I didn't see anything in there about 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.199 her if she had a I mean, is it another personality? 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:43.800 Is it multiple personality disorder? 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.679 I don't believe. So that's not what I took from. 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.159 It, because that would make sense, you know, if you 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.400 have a just a British personality that came out that's 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:54.639 violent maybe or something. 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.040 Yeah, well, I mean, remember we I think we've done 0:20:58.040 --> 0:20:59.760 one on schizophrenia before, haven't we. 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:02.840 I don't know, haven't we definitely. 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.919 Did one on dissociative personality disorder, yeah, which is just 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:11.160 absolutely fascinating. But I was like you, I kind of noticed, like, hey, 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.760 what about multiple personalities? It doesn't it seems like something 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:17.160 that would be right up that alley. 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:18.679 I'm sure they've looked into that. 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:21.560 But apparently apparently that's not part of it. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.440 Yeah. Another case that I said we were going to 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:28.480 get to, This one is really weird and super sad. 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:33.200 This woman named Sarah Calwell in England. She is the 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.720 one that had the migraine that set it off. And 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:41.159 this one is super odd because she's an English woman 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:43.520 who now has a Chinese accent. 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:49.040 I mean just straight up sounds Chinese. 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.960 And like broken English Chinese. 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:56.160 Right right, So she sounds like a native I think 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:01.159 Mandarin speaker is probably what we're thinking of who is 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.960 speaking English. And if you weren't looking like you would 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:09.040 expect to see, say maybe like a middle aged Chinese 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:13.600 woman when you looked at the video. Yeah, and no, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:19.720 it's like, I don't know, late to mid thirties Caucasian woman. Yeah, 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:24.800 a native born English speaker who And she's who I 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:26.560 was thinking of when I was saying for some people, 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:30.440 it's a really big problem because it's presented a big 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:33.000 crisis for her identity. She said that she can't look 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.639 in the mirror while she's speaking any longer. She just 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.720 doesn't feel like herself anymore. It's really hit her hard. 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:42.359 Yeah, I mean her case is really sad. It was 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:46.280 I think twenty ten when she was diagnosed. After this 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:52.920 migraine incident. In twenty fifteen, she couldn't work anymore, and 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.400 she has a lot and more issues going on than 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.959 just the speech. With these migraines that have come on, 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.639 and she's got a whole range of physical problems that 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.520 she's had to stop work. She's in a wheelchair. Even 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.679 though her limbs completely work, her brain basically can't tell 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:11.560 her limbs to do what they should do. 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.159 Good Lord, So from migraines. 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:18.840