In a manner of speaking

People might find themselves speaking in an accent of a particular country despite having limited or no exposure to that dialect.

As far as casualties go, Linda Walker from Newcastle needn’t fret too much. After suffering a stroke, the 60-year-old found her broad Geordie accent changed to a Jamaican one. Ms Walker’s earlier style of diction is spoken in the Tyneside region of Britain and illustrated by the following joke — Doctor to Geordie patient in wheelchair: “You’ve made good progress and now it’s time to try to walk again.” Patient: “Work? Why man, Aa cannet even waak!” Her new accent hails from Jamaica or any part of multicultural London. What the poor lady is suffering from is Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS), an affliction that could one day strike, say Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and make him stop staying “Please shit” when he invites a guest to take a seat.

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But funny as it may sound to you Henry Higginses out there, the FAS is a disorder that can get one down. After all, one is how one speaks — there being an intrinsic connection between the way Lalu Yadav and Jaswant Singh speak English and their personalities — or the type of personalities that they want to advertise. FAS was first identified during World War II when a Norwegian suffering shrapnel damage to her brain developed a strong German accent. Understandably, she was ostracised by the locals. Tiny areas of the brain that affect speech are damaged in people with FAS. This usually results in lengthening or shortening of vowels in speech — markers that form particular accents.

So people might find themselves speaking in an accent of a particular country despite having limited or no exposure to that dialect. So BPO employees beware. Don’t throw a fit if people start thinking that you’re recovering from a stroke when you speak into the phone: “I’ll be daymned, miss, if ya speak ayny louyder!”