I suspect there’s many more cases where such a change in speech doesn’t land on something as closely resembling a particular (broad style of) accent, just “this person sounds different, and that’s odd”. But in some cases it “sounds” like a change in accent.
Now, if it was a change in dialect, that’d be weirded, and more suspect.
Apparently it’s my anniversary today too – weird.
"I had to call one of my friends just to confirm and check whether I was talking in this funny way or my brain had gone crazy. […] "
Both!
Forgot to add – it’s a West Country-based accent. See for example: West Country Yap - YouTube
yesss, i’m quietly a bit incredulous about a sudden “anniversary” for me with BoingBoing as i’ve had an ‘account’ with them, well a password, since 1997; (as least this is when my BoingBoing username/password entry was established in my password manager). But mostly as an aging pesky lurker-ish sort. Always seemed kinda like “my people” in terms of nerdlyness (well, minus the Disney fascination [wink]) anyway, cheers to the tribe!
ahhhhhh “West Country Yap”! Thank you! (been wondering about that for nigh unto thirteen years now)
There was some kind of system switchover on 27 June 2013. Anyone who had an account already got a new born-on date.
Accents involve word stresses and certain pronunciations of vowels and consonants. Foreign accent syndrome causes consistent (for each person, that is) changes in how people stress their words, changes in consonants (substitution, deletion, or distortion) and vowels (distortions, prolongations, substitutions). Together, that can make the person sound like a non-native speaker. Sometimes, but not necessarily, those changes coincidentally more or less end up sounding like specific foreign accents (to people who don’t necessarily have a lot of experience with those accents, anyways). There are also a bunch of other changes that can occur to speech with the syndrome, but they don’t register as being related to a “foreign accent.”
Major upgrade.
As accents go it’s not much good for death metal
(Edited for grammar)
Considering that people can have multiple fully developed personalities with different accents and all, it’s not that crazy to think about. The brain is very mysterious.
to be sure
I think that’s called Tourette’s syndrome
I’ll binge Golden Girls, and hope to get Bea Arthur’s husky, sexy, smart voice. Knowing my luck, I’ll probably end up sounding like Rue McClanahan playing Blanche_Devereaux. If that happened, I’d definitely have to up my sartorial game.
Indeed! 
And all and all.
Especially if from the 17th century
My dad worked in a big bookstore chain in NY back when it was just a few stores, back in the 70’s and he would tell a story of a woman that fell and hit her head, and when she came to didn’t speak English so they scrambled around looking for someone to translate for them. The ambulance came and took her away…and then a few days later someone from her family came by to thank them and to ask a few questions…apparently this woman that was speaking in fluent French did not know any French what so ever and only spoke English!
The brain is a strange thing!
There was a guy who called into a local radio station. He said he had been in a car accident, ended up in a coma and when he woke up he was speaking Spanish.
DJ: Wow! Did you know Spanish before?
Caller: well, yeah.
That would be very, very strange. I’m curious if anyone’s ever had this condition from an accent they’re not familiar with – I mean, I watch enough CAN/UK/AUS/NZ/IRE programming that my brain probably has those accents built in somewhere. But could I wake up with a Filipino accent when I’ve got rather little exposure to that?
I woke up one day with what I thought was club foot. I went to the ER where the doctor informed me that club foot was, in fact, congenital.
I feel compelled to leave this here:
