In short
Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS)—waking up with a changed accent/voice after brain injury or psychological triggers—and how it affects identity, belonging, and daily life.
Guests and backgrounds
Althea Brydon, a London-raised actress with Jamaican parents, developed FAS after a May stroke involving a blockage in her neck artery; she describes losing her familiar voice and being misidentified as Italian/Portuguese. Nick Miller, Emeritus Professor of Motor Speech Disorders at Newcastle University, researches FAS mechanisms. Sarah Colwell, from Plymouth, developed FAS after a severe hemiplegic migraine episode in March 2010; she later used speech-language therapy and migraine treatment. Stephanie Koolan, associate professor in language studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, studies FAS including psychogenic cases.
Key claims
FAS is driven by altered speech-motor control and listener perception; accent change can be identity-shattering and socially isolating; it may fluctuate in psychogenic cases; it’s likely underreported worldwide.
Notable examples
Althea’s first realization in hospital when she suddenly spoke; people laughing and demanding she “perform”; Sarah’s “chips” vowel shift corrected via therapy; Koolan’s roller-coaster-stress case where speech became “jargon” (babbling).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOAlthea's Stroke Experience
0:30 to 0:59
Althea describes her stroke and the aftermath of her speech change.
“Every wireless service comes with a cost, right?”
Althea's Stroke Experience
1:17 to 2:28
Althea describes her stroke and the aftermath of her speech change.
“So now I am one years old and some weeks, you know, I'm new.”
Understanding Foreign Accent Syndrome
2:28 to 4:25
An exploration of what foreign accent syndrome is and how it manifests.
“After they removed this, I am in too intensive care for maybe like two days.”
The Mechanics Behind Accent Change
4:25 to 6:19
Explore how brain changes can lead to changes in speech and accent.
“So what I wanted to know first was is Althea really speaking in an Italian accent or is that just what I am primed to hear after being told that's what it is?”
Impact on Identity and Self-Perception
6:19 to 9:22
Discuss how foreign accent syndrome affects personal identity and self-image.
“then will distort the way in which you speak.”
Althea's Personal Journey
9:22 to 11:30
Althea shares her struggles with identity and how family reacts to her changes.
“It's how you signal to others who you are.”
Sarah's Experience with Accent Change
11:30 to 14:01
Sarah Colwell shares her long-term journey with foreign accent syndrome.
“To wake and to have a change to the voice you have known all of your life, that is not easy to accept.”
Living with Foreign Accent Syndrome
14:01 to 16:20
Discover how foreign accent syndrome affects daily life and speech.
“You guys all say, oh, look at her taking the mick out of Chinese people.”
Exploring Foreign Accent Syndrome
17:20 to 23:06
Understanding the causes, variations, and experiences of foreign accent syndrome.
“We'll hear more from Sarah and Althea later.”
Connection and Acceptance Among Patients
23:06 to 28:01
Althea and Sarah discuss their experiences and the need for community.
“And so everywhere I go, I'm always the only one.”
Show all 11 chapters
The Healing Power of Communication
28:01 to 28:22
Explore the significance of being able to communicate and its impact on healing.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Althia Bryden:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:30Althia Bryden:at Whole Foods Market. Every wireless service comes with a cost, right? Wrong. The TextNow app lets you do your thing for free. Get real talk, real text, and 5G data for must-have apps with no monthly bill. Need more data? Add it right from the app. Done? Go back to free. No long-term contracts. No pressure. No surprises. Just wireless that works around you.
0:53Ella Hubber:TextNow. We've got your back. Download TextNow in your app store today. Wireless plans require the purchase of a SIM card. Visit textnow.com for terms and conditions.
1:04Ella Hubber:Hi, Althea.
1:06Sarah Colwill:I make it.
1:07Ella Hubber:You made it. Hello, Ella. Hi, how are you? Althea Brydon has come to visit me in the studio.
1:17Sarah Colwill:I have a stroke last May. So now I am one years old and some weeks, you know, I'm new. And although she might sound it, she is not Italian. I have no connection with Italy at all. I am born in Croixden, in London, raised in London as well, and my parents are from Jamaica.
1:39Ella Hubber:In fact, this is what she sounded like just last year.
1:43Althia Bryden:Hello, sorry I'm not available at the moment, but please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
1:51Ella Hubber:If you've ever wondered what it's like to wake up and be someone else, this is probably the closest you'll get. But what is happening to cause this complete change in accent? And how does losing the voice you've known your entire life shape or break your identity? I'm Ella Hubber, a scientist and science journalist, and I've been fascinated by Althea's story since I read about it last year. Her journey began after she had a stroke.
2:20Sarah Colwill:They discovered I have a blockage, OK, in my main artery in my neck. It was stopping the blood flow to my brain. After they removed this, I am in too intensive care for maybe like two days. My blood pressure was a bit erratic. And then they moved me to a ward. And when they wake me one day to do blood pressure, I hear this voice. That is my first time to know something has happened to me. By the time, I didn't realise, no, I didn't believe it was me.
2:49Ella Hubber:Did you feel like you had a different accent? Could you hear that or did you just feel like you were having difficulty speaking?
2:56Sarah Colwill:So before this surgery, I could not speak very well, you know. So most of the time I am pointing to staff, pointing. So there was no warning for me with this change. She woke me, the nurse. Immediately I am speaking. That's amazing. So you went from barely verbal to completely verbal again? Complete. And this belief, I am still, no, I was. I was still looking around for who is speaking because I have no way to myself speak. And now people say you sound Italian.
3:35Ella Hubber:Do you actually think you sound Italian or is that something you think people have just kind of put on you?
3:40Sarah Colwill:My darling, I have no clue what I sound like, you know. I don't know if it's Italian or why somebody says to me the other day, are you Portuguese or something like this. as you say people are saying to me it's not me to say I sound Italian but I hear this so many times maybe I accept that this is what it may be but then I've never met a real Italian so they were telling me no please this is so fake but of course it's fake I'm not Italian do you see
4:12Ella Hubber:so it's a bit of a catch. Althea has a rare speech disorder known as foreign accent syndrome or FAS. Many aspects of the disorder are still a mystery but doctors and researchers have uncovered a few key things. So what I wanted to know first was is Althea really speaking in an Italian accent or is that just what I am primed to hear after being told that's what it is?
4:40Althia Bryden:it's as much in the ear of the listener as the mouth of the speaker so the tongue's moving slightly differently the intonation pattern is slightly different or the stress pattern the rhythms slightly different but in the ear of the listener they hear in the speech certain salient prominent points of the person's speech they associate more with a foreign accent rather than the disorderedness and that's where the impression of foreignness comes from.
5:12Ella Hubber:This is Nick Miller. He's an Emeritus Professor of Motor Speech Disorders at Newcastle University. He has been unpicking the mystery of foreign accent syndrome for decades. So he is the perfect person to explain to me why someone, for no apparent social reason, would start speaking with a completely new accent.
5:33Althia Bryden:The most common reason is that it's some kind of speech disorder and usually in association either with an underlying neurological disorder so the person might have had a stroke, a head injury or be developing some kind of progressive neurological disorder.
5:50Ella Hubber:But of course not everyone who has a stroke or who hits their head gets foreign accent syndrome. So that would suggest to me that there's kind of specific regions of the brain that are involved. What's going on there?
6:03Althia Bryden:If the stroke or the neurological disorder is affected, those parts of the brain which control the movement of the tongue, the lips, the vocal cords, your breathing, then in some way your speech will be altered. And that in turn then will distort the way in which you speak. Now, in a severe stroke or when the neurological disorders progress somewhat, then it might be immediately obvious, oh, this person must have some kind of definite speech disorder. But if it's just a mild stroke or it's in the very early stages, the changes to the way in which you speak can be a lot more subtle.
6:49Ella Hubber:So, OK, that's really interesting. So something's gone on in the brain, a change in the brain that means their mouth is moving differently and the words are coming out differently. But then are people with foreign accent syndrome actually speaking in a foreign accent?
7:06Althia Bryden:No, one of the difficulties that people with neurological disorders have when they're speaking is when it comes to particularly complex combinations of sounds, so like tractor, getting from the c to the t in tractor, or getting from the s to the t in stamp or string. string, they have difficulty with that. And one of the ways they're able to spontaneously compensate for that difficulty is that they start to introduce little sounds in between the difficult sounds. We use the transition from one sound to the other. So stamp might sound like setamp or tractor might sound like tracuta.
7:52Ella Hubber:Right.
7:52Althia Bryden:then that might give to your ear, oh, that's how Italians often speak English.
8:00Ella Hubber:We've been talking a lot about structural changes, physical changes that cause this. But, you know, one thing we've heard from people with foreign accent syndrome is the way this affects identity. Have you found that people with foreign accent syndrome do struggle with their identities?
8:20Althia Bryden:The way you speak, your voice, your accent is an integral part of your personality. It's the vehicle by which you project to the outside world who you are or who you want listeners to think you are in terms of your personality, whether you're a person they want to be friends with. So if your accent changes, the message that listeners are getting alters too. In fact, some people with foreign accent syndrome, they express as if part of their self has been robbed from them. And the grief response from that is as bad as losing a limb or losing their hearing or whatever. So certainly a blow to your confidence.
9:05Althia Bryden:It could even get to the situation where people with foreign accent syndrome are searching for where is my lost personality? Where is the lost me?
9:18Ella Hubber:So your accent is more than just the way words come out of your mouth. It's how you signal to others who you are. Foreign accent syndrome changes this fundamental part of yourself. This loss is something I find immensely hard to imagine. But Althea Brydon explained what it has meant for her identity.
9:39Sarah Colwill:Growing up into a Jamaican household, you know, this was a very strong part of my everyday life, you know. My mum and my dad, they maintained very much their accent. I used to switch from the British accent to Jamaican into one sentence, you know, I just jump in and out. But now I cannot even hear it. And also there is a concern. Although it's not my doing, it happens to me and I have no control of it, I don't want to offend authentic Italian. So I feel very displaced. And how's the rest of your family reacted to this? It's changed over time. Everybody is initially the same response to me. burst out laughing.
10:31Sarah Colwill:Nobody can believe. You know, and everybody thinks I am doing some prank or something like this. Now I can manage. But before, it was very triggering. You know, because I'm still trying to understand what has happened to me, and they just burst out laughing. While I am confused, it is very troubling. it's troubling now it begins to feel a strange pressure not with my children etc but with my wider community when they hear this happens to me they need me to perform but me and other people like me we are no comedy we are no caricature we are real people and we are experiencing something that is so bananas.
11:30Sarah Colwill:To wake and to have a change to the voice you have known all of your life, that is not easy to accept. This is not just the simple action of open our mouth and speak and some different sound comes out. We completely lose connection with who we were before.
11:53Ella Hubber:Hearing Althea, I realise how much I take the way I speak for granted and how losing that could leave you feeling alienated from your culture and the people around you. Althea is only about a year into this adjustment. So I have to wonder, does it get better? Does this feeling carry on for five years? Ten? What about 15? Well, Sarah Colwell, who also has foreign accent syndrome, has had much longer to come to terms with her changed voice and what that means for where she belongs.
12:28Althia Bryden:I think it makes you question your identity. I've had to kind of come to terms with not fitting in. I'll never really fit in. Everyone's always going to see me as from somewhere else. But I know where I'm from. And it took me many years to come to terms with that. that it's OK for me to know where I'm from. I don't have to explain myself to other people. And if they perceive me as being from somewhere else, then that's OK because I'm OK with it.
13:00Ella Hubber:It's just a speech problem. Originally from Plymouth, Sarah used to have a strong Devon accent. But 15 years ago, that changed.
13:09Althia Bryden:I think it was March 2010. I had an episode, is all I can say. I thought I was having a stroke. I always have suffered from hemiplegic migraines, but this was a particularly bad one. And it didn't feel like a migraine. Actually, I was scared. So my husband called the ambulance and it was when I was in the ambulance, she said, do you know how you are speaking? You sound, you could work in the local Chinese takeaway.
13:40Ella Hubber:I actually saw you have a TikTok page and you posted a few videos on there. And the tagline you've written on there is, I didn't say I sounded Chinese, you did. And is that something you're kind of constantly telling people?
13:54Althia Bryden:It was important to me because I get a lot of flack of people saying, oh, you're racist. Hey, I'm not the one. The media dubbed it, the Chinese lady. You guys all say, oh, look at her taking the mick out of Chinese people.
14:10Ella Hubber:I've never once said I sounded Chinese. How has living with foreign accident syndrome changed your daily life, you know, back 15 years ago and compared to now?
14:21Althia Bryden:I think it's been psychologically a long process and coming to terms with never really sounding how I would expect to sound. Sometimes I get my old voice back for a couple of days maybe. And the treatment I'm on for the migraines helped because they reduced the amount of migraines I'm having. So I find that has an overall impact. So like today I've put a migraine coming, so I feel speaking is a lot harder.
Read the full transcript
14:50Ella Hubber:Have you had any speech or language therapy or analysis that has helped you understand things a bit better?
14:57Althia Bryden:Yeah, I was really lucky because I used to work in a university with a speech and language therapy department. And the head of that department at the time knew me before this happened. And he had a daughter my age, also had grown up in Devon, so similar accent. And he compared the two sounds. and what he found which was like a eureka moment was most of my speech disturbance was due to long and short vowels which i think is why my speech has developed so well because i had that understanding i mean i was mortified at first because i said oh i'm going to have to learn all the short and long vowels that everybody learns as they grow enough i'm going to have if you start from scratch at 35, you know, it was overwhelming.
15:49Althia Bryden:But when I started, it was actually easier than I thought. So for example, one I always struggle with is chips. Before I would say chips and always make sound like a chip-a-suh because I was elongating the vowel. And now I know it's a shot. So I will say chips, chips. So I make a shot. So with the vowel sounds, especially if a word comes out funny when I say it, I think, oh, maybe that wasn't meant to be a short about. This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market Summer Fruit Fest is your invitation to eat the season. Fresh, organic, and bursting with flavor. Start your day with peaches and organic blueberries and yogurt.
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17:20Ella Hubber:We'll hear more from Sarah and Althea later. To really understand foreign accent syndrome, we have to explore the broader picture. Because it is not just caused by neurological disorders.
17:35Ella Hubber:One case that we have reported on a few years ago, what was very peculiar about her foreign accent is that she was very much affected by stress and an increase in stimulation around her in the sense that that would really trigger a very strong accent that would ultimately evolve into what we call jargon. It came across as babbling a series of sounds that made no sense in any of the languages that our group actually spoke. Stephanie Koolan is an associate professor in language studies at Vrej University in Brussels. Foreign accent syndrome is her specialty. Over the course of her research, she has come across some quite extreme cases of the condition.
18:17Ella Hubber:Not a long time ago, I was contacted by Dutch TV makers, and they were making a documentary on FOSS, and she wanted to participate. They put her in a roller coaster ride with loopings and she came out of the roller coaster ride and she was speaking with jargon. You see that this was really stress and being overstimulated that triggered, well, this jargon. We've been hearing through the program so far a lot about people developing FAS after a stroke or a head injury. but this isn't the only time you would get foreign accident syndrome, or there are different types. Yes, yes. If you talk about people having suffered a stroke, then we talk about neurological or neurogenic FAST cases, we also call them.
19:06Ella Hubber:And then we have another variant called psychogenic variant. And that is actually a variant that we see reports on more often now. In those cases, The FAST is not attributed to a neurological cause, but there is oftentimes a psychiatric disorder that is present, or there has been a psychological event, a traumatic event, for instance, that has triggered this change in accent. As of the year 2000, we have seen an incremental number of reports on that specific type. And between people who have suffered stroke or head injury and more psychological causes of FAS, do you see a difference in presentation?
19:50Ella Hubber:Yes, we definitely see differences. So with neurological cases, what you generally see is that either the accent remains present or with, for instance, therapy, we see that it wears off and that actually speech becomes normalized. but we see fluctuations happening in the speech of psychogenic patients. There are days that the accent is completely normal and that they speak with their mother tongue accent, but that there are days that they would wake up or situations in which this accent can actually be triggered. Feeling very stressed can actually induce a very strong accent. And I'm wondering, actually, how many people you are seeing with foreign accent syndrome?
20:38Ella Hubber:Because I'm reading that it's really rare that there's only 100 people, 200 people. I think it is wildly underreported. I think that a lot of people do not run to a speech and language therapist to get help for their FOSS. I also think a lot of neurologists, for instance, are still unaware of how to label this and maybe also think that this will wear off with time. We've spoken in this program to English speakers who have foreign accents in English, but you are from Belgium. You obviously have patients who speak Dutch and have foreign accents in your language. I'm just interested to know if there are other cases of foreign accent syndrome in the world.
21:22Ella Hubber:I think the majority are well oriented towards the English speaking world. But we see patients with mother tongues, Japanese, for instance. We also see patients with mother tongue, Dutch, French, Spanish. So it has been reported in basically every single language. But unfortunately, we have languages where it's just vastly underreported and we know it must be present. So currently we have a project that we have launched on psychogenic FOSS. My PhD student that is working on that, she's Chinese and she speaks Mandarin Chinese. And we were asking ourselves the question, hey, but Chinese is a tonal language.
22:05Ella Hubber:So how does that actually show in tonal languages? As someone who studies this, as someone who's been around a lot of people with FAS, if you woke up tomorrow with FAS with another accent, what would be going through your mind? What would you do? I mean, I cannot imagine what it is like, really. But I think the thing that I would really do is try and look probably for people who live with the same condition. A lot of the patients feel like they're alone, because also, it's always sad that FOS is so rare. But when you really look for the cases, I think the reports are almost every year, we have a few cases that are mediatized.
22:45Ella Hubber:So we know that probably there's, there are many more patients. And I know that there are groups out there that try and find each other with this condition and share their experiences.
22:57Sarah Colwill:It is important for everyone in life to have some connection with someone like them. We are humans and this is what we need. We need this connection, you know. And so everywhere I go, I'm always the only one. Of course, this could be nice in some ways, but then you go back to being a caricature. You go back to being entertainment. You know, I'm just trying to live, and this is not my choice, and so I'm not going to perform for you. So this is why I say, you know, it would be nice to know someone like me. I can link to them and communicate somehow.
23:46Ella Hubber:You may have never heard about foreign accent syndrome before today, and many sources will say it's rare, but it is a condition found around the world, and it can affect any kind of person. But what has become most apparent to me is that by taking away your old voice and the identity it carries, foreign accent syndrome isolates you from your community. Althea Brydon told us that she is still searching for that connection. She's never met anyone with foreign accent syndrome before. And if there was one thing we could do before this was all over, it was to help Althea get that connection back.
24:26Sarah Colwill:Oh, hello. Hi, Althea. Oh, Sarah, I cannot tell you how excited I am to see you today, you know, if somebody like me. How are you? Yeah, I am good.
24:39Althia Bryden:I'm expecting many questions from you. Sarah, do you know other people with foreign accent syndrome? I know a couple that I speak to like this. There are lots of us around. We have a Facebook group. There's over 100 people around the world that currently have foreign accent syndrome. Honestly, we have people joining us all the time. And it's quite fascinating to hear how it came about for them, what they struggle with. And it's nice to answer the questions because we set it up because when it happened to us,
25:10Ella Hubber:like 15 years ago, there was no information. I was in this call, but Althea and Sarah certainly didn't need me there. They understood each other in a way that I never could.
25:22Sarah Colwill:People say to me, oh, where are you from? I'm from Britain. Britain? You're going here? Yes. You know, I go through all of this. Yeah. Somebody tell me I sound Spanish. Somebody tell me I sound Italian. So I have no connection with all these places you are naming. but I don't know what is this accent.
25:42Althia Bryden:No, and it isn't an accent. That's the thing. And the variety of accents people assign to you is just their brain trying to establish. And I don't know, maybe it's quite primal, but you first meet someone, you want to assess what are they like, what do they look like, how do they sound, get an assessment, where you think they are from. I don't know why we feel the need to do that, but we do. everyone's going to keep on doing it and you know you will as time goes on I suppose learn to accept don't like because when you say to people oh you know I'm from Britain no I mean originally I know what your question is Ashley thank you I'm not stupid I'm telling you where I'm from it's your brain that can't compute not mine ah that is an interesting way to think about you know
26:33Sarah Colwill:because for me, I spend the time thinking it's me, you know? No, it's not, no. But of course, I have no control over what's happened to me. But thank you for saying this. I have no process like this, you know?
26:47Ella Hubber:Yeah. Clearly, both Althea and Sarah have felt othered after losing their old voices. But despite this, they have found the silver lining in the fact that they have a voice at all.
27:02Althia Bryden:you have a part of your brain that is damaged you will now always have problem speaking and understanding it affects your speed of processing and formulating a response in a manner that you can get it out however that sounds is a good thing that you can express yourself and we are grateful that we can still speak and express ourselves oh yes yeah but it's never your fault your problem how you stand no and even though people will find it difficult you have to always keep that in to yourself you are doing your best yes i love the fact you say this you know because
27:45Sarah Colwill:that is my turning point and sometimes i speak you know a big team mixed up back to france sideways you know it's not quite right but um the good thing of course now i can speak for myself and most of the time people seem to understand why I'm saying to them and that is how I begin to heal
28:13Sarah Colwill:We take for granted the ability to speak regardless of how it is we are blessed to be able to communicate and that is the beauty of it
28:54Althia Bryden:Good, Bad, Billionaire. Listen now or search for Good Bad Billionaire wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
29:07Althia Bryden:How did a boycott Jimmy become a billionaire from posting videos? On Good Bad Billionaire, we're going to find out how the world's most popular YouTuber, Mr Beast, made his fortune. He's buried himself in a coffin for days. Counted to 100 ,000 on camera. And even recreated Squid Games, all in an attempt to go viral on the internet. But it all started when he gave a homeless man$10 ,000. So is he a philanthropist reshaping capitalism? Or is he just the king of the attention economy? Find out on Good Bad Billionaire. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
From the publisher
What’s it like to wake up with a brand new voice? For those with foreign accent syndrome, this is their reality. Patients who develop this rare speech disorder start speaking in a brand new accent that they often have no connection to.
So how does losing the voice you’ve known your entire life shape, or break, your identity?
Presenter Ella Hubber speaks to Althia Bryden, who developed foreign accent syndrome last year, and Sarah Colwill, who has lived with the condition for the past 15 years. They share the deep impact it has had on their identity and connection to those around them.
And to understand what is happening in the brain to cause this complete change in accent, and whether it’s really even an accent at all, Ella speaks to professor Nicholas Miller, who has been unpicking the mystery of foreign accent syndrome for decades. Also, professor Stefanie Keulen shares that there are actually multiple types of the condition.
Even though foreign accent syndrome is rare, it is found around the world, can affect anyone, and highlights just how deeply our voices influence all aspects of our lives.
Presenter: Ella Hubber Producers: Sophie Ormiston, Ella Hubber Assistant Producer: Minnie Harrop Editor: Martin Smith