A Texas Woman Woke Up from Jaw Surgery With a British Accent
Back in December, a Texas mom went to get jaw surgery and woke up speaking like she was from the U.K. ABC News reports that Lisa Alamia, who got the surgery to correct an overbite, has been diagnosed with foreign accent syndrome, a real condition that can be permanent.
Foreign accent syndrome has only affected around 100 people in the past century, and is usually caused by a brain injury. According to The Atlantic, one Norwegian woman was hit in the head with shrapnel during World War II and developed a thick foreign accent; people wouldn’t serve her in shops because they thought she was German. The condition can either stem from a physical brain issue, or a psychological one.
There’s no known cure; it can fade over time, or can stick around forever. Alamia has only been out of her country once, and that was on a trip to Mexico, so it’s not like she was exposed to Brits growing up. KHOU reports that her doctor checked to see if she was faking her accent by making her try tongue-twisters over and over. Some experts say that slight differences in how the mouth moves during speech can change how vowels are pronounced, and some may perceive that as a different accent.
When Alamia first started talking, her kids thought she was making it up, and some people still think she’s lying. But she’s going to start speech therapy in hopes she can get her Texas drawl back.
