Imagine waking up with a totally different accent... Image Credit: TikTok / @angie.mcyen
A woman from Australia who underwent tonsil surgery woke up to find that her accent had completely changed.
An Gie Mcyen, whose accent had been distinctly Australian up until very recently, developed an Irish twang after undergoing a routine procedure and is now unable to reclaim her original voice.
"I woke up with an Irish accent the day before and thought I was gonna wake up from this weird dream," she said. "But no, my Aussie accent's gone."
According to doctors, she is suffering from what is know as Foreign Accent Syndrome - an extremely rare condition that has only been documented around 100 times.
Mcyen, who has never even been to Ireland, initially found that while she sometimes woke up with her original accent, it would very quickly change back to Irish within the space of a few minutes.
"I woke up this morning and I was speaking with my Aussie accent, and I called one of my friends and confirmed that my Aussie accent was back," she said. "But during the phone call, within five to 10 minutes, she could see the deterioration of my accent back to Irish."
"I'm not even trying, I'm completely freaked out."
Her original accent has since disappeared entirely.
"Yes, I know I need medical attention and to see doctors, but it's a struggle to even find the right person to look into me and tell me what's wrong and get me back to my old self," she said.
It makes sense. The Irish have evolved and are born without tonsils - they get in the way of drinking. We're now working on evolving away the liver - what's the point of an organ that just gets destroyed before you're 16?
I'm Ulster Scot--Scotch-Irish in America. It is said that the first thing English settlers built here was a church. The first thing German settlers built here was a barn. The first thing Scotch-Irish settlers built here was a whisky still.
I've heard stories of people even speaking in a different language they didn't previously know. Even now extinct dialects. I suspect there may be something going on that doesn't fit at all in our straightforward understanding of how these things work. Past life speaking instincts?
It would be more convincing if she was speaking in a different (unfamiliar) language, as some of them do. I'm not saying she's faking it, but she would have heard an Irish accent before this.
Her 'Irish' accent does not sound authentic to my ears. Consciously or unconsciously, she is in control of her own voice. She has not been taken over by some supernatural entity. Whatever is going on the explanation is to be found in her own mind. Â
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