An Australian woman has gone viral on TikTok after claiming that she woke up with an Irish accent following tonsil surgery.
Angela Yen, 27, had a tonsillectomy on April 19 and was confused when her Aussie accent reportedly turned into an Irish brogue 10 days after the procedure.
“I’ve never been to Ireland. I grew up in Australia and had an Aussie accent for the last 20 years since I moved here when I was 8 years old,” she told Storyful.
The Brisbane resident met with doctors and did research trying to figure out what happened to her normal accent.
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki, a science author and commentator, weighed in on the debacle in a TikTok video explaining that Yen may have foreign accent syndrome.
The rare speech disorder causes a person to sound like they are speaking with an accent from another country. It has only been reported about 150 times, according to Kruszelnicki, and is normally caused by a brain injury. But Yen explained in a video that she has no neurological symptoms — and doctors are reportedly perplexed.
When I started singing, I was singing in a different sound and also talking words in a funny accent,” Yen recounted of the morning she discovered her new trick.
She told viewers that she’s found a neurologist with a specialty in stroke rehabilitation who is willing to help diagnose her.
