Czech falls off motorbike, wakes up with British accent

Bohemian rhapsodises in cut-glass English

Posted in Science, 14th September 2007 10:50 GMT

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A Czech speedway racer discovered his inner British toff after another rider ran over his head.

Non-English speaker Matej Kus, 18, took the spill during a race in the UK. Paramedics were stunned when he came round and asked where he was – in perfect English. It soon became apparent that Kus had lost his memory, forgetting he was a Czech bike racer, and presumably thinking he was an accent coach at the BBC.

Team manager Peter Waite told Ananova that Kus sounded “like a newsreader”. The biker's foray into the world of received pronunciation was shortlived, however. As soon as his memory returned, two days later, his command of English evaporated.

Speaking through an interpreter, Kus said: "There must be some English deep in my head…Hopefully I can pick some English up so I'll be able to speak it without someone having to hit me over the head."

With the Czech capital Prague being the UK’s number one destination for stag weekends, Kus’s hopes may be folorn.

Doctors put the baffling linguistic transformation down to Foreign Accent Syndrome, a rare condition where a blow to the head – or a stroke – damages the parts of the brain that control speech.

In 2004 a Bristol woman woke up speaking French and thinking she was living in Paris. She was subsequently diagnosed with Susac’s syndrome. As she explained to the Daily Mail last year, "It might sound funny to others, but suddenly thinking you are French is terrifying."®

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