ABSTRACT
Occasionally, brain damage may result in what appears to be a foreign accent. The most widely known case of this type is a study by the neurologist Monrad-Krohn (1947) of a woman, Astrid L., who developed what sounded like a German accent in her Norwegian, as a result of a shrapnel wound to the head. “What above all characterized her speech was her broken foreign accent, her completely changed ‘melody of language’” (MonradKrohn, 1947, p. 411). However, to Monrad-Krohn’s surprise, her musical abilities did not seem to be affected. She could sing and hum in tune, although (p. 411) “she never had the natural Norwegian accent when she had to link several words together into a sentence.” Why, asked Monrad-Krohn, was there a prosodic disturbance in a patient who could sing? He failed to find a satisfactory answer.
