Australian wakes up with an Irish accent

Australians, New Zealanders, Americans, English, Scots and Irish may theoretically speak the same language – but their accent gives English a very special touch. While the Australians like to swallow individual syllables, the Irishman pulls them out like chewing gum.

The Australian Angie Yen from Brisbane had no connection to Ireland so far. But ten days after an almond operation, the 27-year-old suddenly woke up with an Irish accent. The young woman noticed this when she was standing in the shower in the morning and began to sing.

In Tiktok, the woman complains about her Irish accent

She later poured her followers on Tiktok her heart out – in an Irish accent, of course. She didn’t do anything differently than usual in the morning, she reported in the short video. After breakfast she went into the shower and started singing. She heard herself with an Irish accent. “I thought it couldn’t be true,” she said. She titled her video: “I woke up with an Irish accent. #Sends help. “

That same day, Yen had an interview with her potential new employer in an Irish accent. It felt like a “strange dream,” she said later in an interview with Australian broadcaster ABC. She almost felt like it wasn’t her own body. When asked by the journalists, the young woman assured her that she was not doing the accent on purpose and that she really wanted her Australian accent back.

Rare “Foreign-Accent Syndrome”

Angie Yen’s desperation has meanwhile also called on a prominent science journalist in Australia, who goes by the name of Dr. Karl appears. “When you wake up and suddenly speak with a foreign accent, it can be quite stressful,” said Karl Kruszelnicki in a message addressed to Yen. After all, language would also define who you are. According to Kruszelnicki, there are around 150 documented cases of the so-called “Foreign Accent Syndrome” worldwide. Most of the time, the syndrome is associated with head injuries, a stroke, surgery, or diabetes, and the good news is that it can be corrected. Yen should do speech therapy and sign up for an acting school, for example.

Angie Yen said she was going through some sort of grieving process about her lost accent herself. “Most people think it’s funny and they’d love to wake up like this,” she said. “But I grew up here and went to school and now I feel like I don’t belong any more.” She also has concerns that it is not just the “syndrome” behind it, but something worse. That’s why she is currently receiving medical treatment.

In 2014, Australians suddenly spoke fluent Chinese after a coma

Yen’s case is rare, but not unique. In 2014, for example, the story of an Australian who woke up from a coma and only spoke Chinese made the rounds. Ben McMahon was seriously injured in a car accident. When he came to after a week, his parents were ecstatic at first, until the nurse informed them that their son only spoke Chinese. The young Australian had already learned the language at school, but until the accident he had just mastered the basics. But after a week in a coma, he suddenly spoke her fluently. “For the first three days I only spoke Chinese, that must have scared my parents a bit,” the then 22-year-old told the Australian broadcaster SBS.

After about three days, McMahon began to speak English again, to the delight of his family. Before that, the Chinese nurse had to translate what he had said. But although the English language returned and Ben McMahon is now speaking his mother tongue again fluently and with an Australian accent, Chinese has also been retained.

French accent after a car accident

The Australian broadcaster ABC had already reported in 2013 about another Australian woman who suddenly spoke with a French accent after a car accident. And in 2010, the case of a young Croatian girl became known who, after a coma, was able to express herself perfectly in German, although she had barely mastered the language before.

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