Expert: Joy Ramos - 4/12/2006

Question
I read in a magizine once that the human brain is physically shaped by the society in which it is immersed in. That's why people from different parts of the world think in different dimensions. This is also why Japanese cannot pronounce the "r" sound; they can only pronounce "l" instead. Their brains are physically unable to let them pronounce that sound. Another interesting story that I saw on the Discovery Channel that is somewhat related: An American woman had a brain injury, and when she woke up, she was speaking in a British accent. I just want to make sure that I read the magazine right because this was some years ago and I want to refresh my memory on this topic by hearing what an expert has to say about it.

Answer
Hi, Atticus! That was a very interesting question you asked. I'm not an expert on linguistics but it is something I have a great interest in, luckily.  I believe that we all inherently have generally the same capacity to speak or articulate different sounds. It's just that the way we end up talking is just influenced by what we hear around us. For example, a baby born to Japanese parents who's adopted by a French couple will  be able to pronounce the "r" sound and will end up speaking with a French accent. About suddenly speaking in a different accent, I did a little research and found out that that phenomen is called (not surprisingly) "foreign accent syndrome". The story you mentioned was about a woman born and raised in Indiana who, after head trauma and brain injury, woke up with a British accent, even though she's never been to Britain in her whole life. Initially, before people understood the actual reason for this phenomenon, people thought it was psychological. But, after intense research, an actual physical reason has been determined. What scientists have discovered is that people who suddenly wake up after brain injury and appear to speak in a different accent have had particular areas of their brain damaged (I'm not sure which parts). It results in altered speech patterns (elongating vowels, slurring some letters, etc) that are a result to changes in their basic speaking capacity that just happen to coincide with how a foreign accent may sound.  Thinking about your question actually led me to a follow-up question - that is, how did different accents arise in the first place? I'm sure the reason for that will be a lot more complicated but it would be interesting to find out, don't you think?