According to BBC news, the man who is in his 50s had developed a rare syndrome called foreign accent syndrome (FAS) after the cancer diagnoses.
After speaking “normal” English all his life, he now has an “uncontrollable Irish accent”. Although it may not sound possible, its a rare and real condition.
In addition, the healthline article states that Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) occurs when severe damage or trauma was done to the brain for instance, a head injury or stroke.
However, there is no history of brain trauma for this man, or any neurological examination abnormalities.
According to the researchers’ report, the US man, who is now “Irish”, the accent became a norm in all settings and eventually became a part of his vocabulary.
The authors of the report said: “To our knowledge, this is the first case of FAS described in a patient with prostate cancer and the third described in a patient with malignancy.”
It is noted that the accent lasted until his death.
Researchers suspect this was caused by a condition called paraneoplastic neurological disorder (PND), ‘’when cancer patients’ immune systems attack parts of their brain, as well as muscles, nerves and the spinal cord“.
In 1941, in one of the first cases of this condition, a Norwegian woman developed a German accent after being hit by bomb shrapnel.
