Foreign Accent Syndrome...

I find Foreign Accent Syndrome fascinating. Essentially, typically after a head injury or stroke, the patient loses their accent and acquires a new accent - often from a different country and one they may have never even visited!

Although rare, this syndrome must be able to tell us lots about language and accent acquisition.

What I find most interesting is that accents are acquired very early in life and it is very difficult to learn how to pronounce words in different languages after the "critical age" (around puberty). This is why it is so difficult to learn a foreign language as an adult and even more to to acquire a convincing accent. So instantly acquiring a perfect foreign accent due to an injury to a specific part of the brain is just fascinating!!!