A French accent after corpus callosum infarct

Abstract

An accent is a feature of speech that characterizes certain people or regions. The foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare disorder in which persons develop a speech pattern perceived by listeners to be foreign.1,2⇓ FAS has typically been observed after anterior cortical or subcortical lesions in the hemisphere dominant for language,1,2⇓ and a disruption of linguistic prosody has been implicated.1 We report a patient in whom a French accent appeared after an ischemic infarct in the corpus callosum (CC). A 53-year-old right-handed (+4 on the modified Annett handedness inventory3) English-speaking office worker had the sudden onset of difficulty speaking. Examination on the day of the event showed fluent speech with a staccato quality, and several observers then and later noted that her speech had acquired an accent in English resembling that of a native French speaker. There was a prominent disturbance of melodic line, with altered intonation, stresses, and pauses that imparted the impression of …