A Texas woman went into jaw surgery to correct an overbite, and while she got her new smile, she got something she did not plan for: a British accent.
Lisa Alamia was diagnosed with foreign accent syndrome, an extremely rare speech disorder that alters a person's speech so that he or she seems to speak with a foreign accent.
When Alamia underwent lower-jaw surgery in December 2015 and returned home with a British accent, her three children thought she was kidding.
"I was very shocked," she told ABC News. "I didn't know how to take it. I was very confused. I said 'Ya'll' all the time before the accent. Once I got the accent, I started noticing I'd say, 'You all.'"
Doctors estimate that the speech disorder has affected fewer than 100 people in 100 years worldwide. The condition is most often caused by a brain injury, but Alamia's neurologist said everything came back normal after a full range of tests.
"I was very shocked," she told ABC News. "I didn't know how to take it. I was very confused. I said 'Ya'll' all the time before the accent. Once I got the accent, I started noticing I'd say, 'You all.'"
A miracle!
