鈥淚鈥檝e become resigned to speaking like this,鈥� he says. The 17-year old boy鈥檚 mother tongue is Dutch, but for his whole life he has spoken with what sounds like a French accent.
鈥淭his is who I am and it鈥檚 part of my personality,鈥� says the boy, who lives in Belgium 鈥� where Dutch is an official language 鈥� and prefers to remain anonymous. 鈥淚t has made me stand out as a person.鈥�
No matter how hard he tries, his speech sounds French. About 140 cases of foreign accent syndrome (FAS) have been described in scientific studies, but most of these people developed the condition after having a stroke.
Advertisement
In the UK, for example, a woman in Newcastle who鈥檇 had a stroke in 2006 woke up with a Jamaican accent. Other British cases include a woman who developed a Chinese accent, and another who acquired a following a bout of .
But the teenager has had the condition from birth, sparking the interest of of City University London and his team.
Scans revealed that, compared with controls, the flow of blood to two parts of the boy鈥檚 brain were significantly reduced. One of these was the prefrontal cortex of the left hemisphere 鈥� a finding unsurprising to the team, as it is known to be associated with planning actions including speech.
But the other region 鈥� the right side of the cerebellum 鈥� was unexpected. This part of the brain is known to be associated with coordinating actions, but was thought to be a more primitive region than the cortex.
鈥淥ur results add to evidence that the cerebellum doesn鈥檛 just coordinate movement, but is also involved in the cognitive planning of an activity,鈥� says Verhoeven.
The French way
Speech analysis confirmed that the teenager has several typically French inflections. Most distinctively, he pronounces the letter 鈥渞鈥� the French way, using the uvular muscle at the back of the mouth, rather than the Dutch way of using the tip of the tongue. 鈥淚鈥檝e tried very hard to change it to a Dutch 鈥榬鈥�, but I鈥檝e never managed it because I just can鈥檛,鈥� he says.
He also pronounces vowels differently, saying a French-sounding 鈥渆e鈥� (as in 鈥減eace鈥�) rather than the shorter Dutch 鈥渋鈥� (as in 鈥渋nk鈥�).
Verhoeven points out these traits are not intentional. 鈥淎ll speakers with FAS have a speech impairment which happens to be interpreted as a foreign accent,鈥� he says.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 also interesting is that the patient has other symptoms that can be attributed to these [faulty] connections,鈥� says of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Cognitive tests revealed that the teenager struggles not only to plan speech, but also to plan how to draw objects. Otherwise, his scores were generally typical.
Journal reference: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00065
Read more about language in our topic guide /round-up/language/
听
