Grandma who's never been to Italy wakes up with Italian accent

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A grandmother said she woke up with an Italian accent after initially losing her speech for three months. Althia Bryden, 58, a medically retired customer service advisor from London, suffered a stroke on May 4, which left her unable to speak or feel the upper right side of her body.After further medical examination, doctors identified a carotid web in her neck as the cause of her stroke and performed surgery to remove it in August.

Following the operation, Althia regained her ability to speak but, despite never having spoken Italian or visited Italy, she found herself speaking with a distinct Italian accent – even unconsciously slipping Italian words and phrases such as "mamma mia", "bambino" and "si" into conversation.Althia's speech and language therapist suggested she may have foreign accent syndrome, a rare condition where a person's speech takes on an accent different from their usual one, often typically resulting from brain damage like a stroke.

While Althia awaits a formal diagnosis, she admits that although she's grateful to have survived the stroke and regained her speech, she feels like she's lost her identity, waking up each day hoping her accent will return to normal.Althia told PA Real Life: "Even my laugh is not the same...

I'm not me, it's like someone is impersonating me. I feel like a clown with an upside-down smile that people are watching perform.