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NY Post
New York Post
31 Jul 2024


NextImg:English woman, 60, reveals why she suddenly speaks with Swedish accent — medics at first suspected a stroke

A mom woke up speaking like a member of ABBA.

Georgina Gailey, 60, noticed her Swedish twang while chatting to her sister on FaceTime.

Hospital medics suspected a stroke, but two weeks later she was diagnosed with Foreign Accent Syndrome, The Sun reported.

The mom-of-two from the UK, said: “I had a heart attack a few months earlier. I was getting better.

“I was very well spoken and now I say Ja rather than Yes.

“People ask where I come from and when I tell them they laugh. I smile but underneath it makes me sad.

“I’m English born and bred. I’ve never even been to Sweden.”

Georgina Gailey
Georgina Gailey, 60, noticed her Swedish twang while chatting to her sister on FaceTime. Facebook

Georgina went on: “I went to the hospital and they thought I had a stroke.

“They kept me in for two weeks and then I was finally diagnosed.”

Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare disorder which can occur after trauma to the brain.

Georgina said: “I don’t know if I’ll have the accent forever. I want to raise awareness because the more people know about it the more research will be done.”

Georgina Gailey and her daughter
Hospital medics suspected a stroke, but two weeks later she was diagnosed with Foreign Accent Syndrome, The Sun reported. Facebook

In 2022, Brisbane dentist Angie Wen – who moved to Australia from Taiwan when she was eight – has been living with foreign accent syndrome since April 2021, when her voice began to sound different 10 days after a tonsillectomy.

Speaking to 7 News, the 29-year-old said more than a year later, her accent “hasn’t completely reverted back” to her Australian twang.

Ms Yen said that while the “speech issues were temporary struggles that got better with time”, the greatest challenge has been “accepting my new accent, voice and identity”.

This story originally appeared on The Sun and reproduced with permission