Evening star., 1950-01-30
Womun's Accent Altered
By Injury to Bruin Lobe
Norwegian, Hurt by Air Raid Bomb,
Now Speaks Like a German
By Thomas r. Henry

The strange story of Norwegian woman
hit on the head by bomb fragment during
an air raid who afterwards spoke her own
language like German SO that she was
mistaken for foreigner, has just been re-
ported here.
The case Is made the basis Of new brain
malady dysprosody. It is described by DR..
G. H. Monrad-Krohn of the neurological
clinic Of the University Of Oslo. His report
is published in the Quarterly Review of
Psychiatry and Neurology issued here.
The bomb fragment, according to the
report, destroyed a large part of the left
cerebral hemisphere. For several months
the victim was paralyzed completely on the
right side and suffered an almost total loss
OF memory. She was speechless.
Gradually she regained her speech and
became able to express herself fairly f1uently.
But her normal Norwegian accent had been
lost. She never had studied the German
language. been in Germany, or had any
contact with Germans. When she first was
brought to Dr. Monrad-Krohns clinic and
the circumstances explained, even he had
difficulty in believing that she was not a
German who had recently learned Norwe-
gian.
Other Defects Found.
She was found to have some other minor
language defects. When writing, for ex-
ample, she constantly spelled aloud or whis-
pered the words before placing them on
paper. This he interprets as repression to
more primitive stage of speech develop
ment. She will repeat request over and
over again before complying with it. She
avoids complicated sentences and, although
she is well educated woman, makes many
errors in grammar.
But" says the Norwegian neuroogist
"above all characteristics of her speech is her
broken foreign accent, her completely
changed melody of language. Nothing abb
normal can be found about her musical
faculties Her sense of rhythm, tested by
drumming on the table, seems to be quite
acute. When the examiner starts humming
any well known tune she joins in at once
and continues by herself, true to time and
tune. She never has been caught singing a
false note"
The case leads to the conclusion, he says,
that the melody, or the accent of spo-
Ken language may not only be lost but
may also be altered in consequence of brain
LESSONS. There is also loss of vocabulary and
grammar, the exact localization of which
cannot be determined Such an alteration
of the melody of spoken language can exist
without any demonstrable disturbance of
musical faculties.
Conclusions Outlined.
"The melody, or accent, of spoken Ian
guage seems to be relatively independent of
all other elements Of spoken language, such
as vocabulary and grammatic functions,
and Is completely independent Of musical
faculties"
Thus, he concludes, the faculty of giving
words their right accent-both as regards
stress and pitch and to convey different
shades of meaning-apparently is dis
tinct function of the brain.
Only one previous case Of the kind has
been described in medical literature, ac-
cording to the report and then the inf7u-
ence Of environment could not be complete
ly excluded. The woman had lived for a
short time among foreigners. In this case,
however, the victim of "dysprosody' never
had heard German spoken.