Texas Woman Wakes Up with British Accent

After a routine jaw surgery, a Texas woman gained the ability to speak with a British accent. The doctors have explained that Lisa Alamia is suffering from something called “Foreign Accent Syndrome,” a rare neurological disorder.

Lisa Alamia, a mother of three and 100 percent Texan, underwent a jaw surgery six months ago. The procedure was a routine one, doctors trying to fix her overbite. However, after waking up from surgery, Alamia started speaking with a perfect British accent.

At first, her children thought that she is joking with them, but after they had realized that she is not trying to mimic the accent, they were shocked by the sudden development.

“People who don’t know me, they’re like, ‘Hey, where you from?” Alamia declared. “I’m from Rosenberg. They’re like, ‘Where is that?’ I’m like, ‘Right here in Rosenberg.’ ‘Oh, you’re from here? How do you talk like that?’ So that’s where the whole story comes up.”

The doctor that was in charge of her case, Dr. Toby Yaltho, a neurologist at the Sugar Land Methodist Hospital in Houston stated that the syndrome is very rare, only affecting roughly 100 individuals in the last 100 years.

The first few months after Alamia developed her condition, she was ashamed to talk to strangers because she didn’t know how they would react to her accent. It even took her children a few weeks to get accustomed to her new voice.

Now, after receiving the full support of her family, the woman is more opened about her rare neurological disorder that gives her a perfect British accent.

Alamia even has fun stories about her newly acquired British accent. She says that she used to pronounce the word “tamales” exactly like a Hispanic person. Now, she just manages to slightly correct her pronunciation when uttering the word.

Moreover, she says that people get disoriented when she says “kitten.” Her Texan compatriots hear “kitten” when she’s actually saying that she is “kidding.”

“Foreign accent syndrome” is believed to be caused by a stroke, a head trauma, developmental problems, or migraines. The first case was recorded in 1907.

According to the researchers, the individuals affected by this neurological syndrome do not acquire fluency in the foreign language that they are mimicking, just the accent.

There was a single case registered in 2010 when a Croatian man woke from a profound coma and started speaking German fluently. However, that was an isolated case which still puzzles doctors worldwide.

Image source: Flickr

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Karen Jackson

Karen Jackson has always been passionate about technology. All the way through high-school she immersed herself in computers and web-design. Her ambitious nature helped her become a pro in Adobe Photoshop only by watching online videos and working with the program herself. This is also the program that she mostly uses in the creation of websites at her work-place. Technological innovation and gadgets that push the boundaries of what we are comfortable with have always fascinated her, so expect to see some weird gadget reviews coming from her.