[Which suggests she now sounds a bit like Julie Burchill...what a horrible thought :-]
> Doctors say Mrs Roberts, who was born and bred in Indiana, has a condition
> called foreign accent syndrome.
> This rare condition occurs when part of the brain becomes damaged. This
can
> follow a stroke or head injury. There have only been a few documented
cases.
> Mrs Roberts discovered she had a British accent after recovering her voice
> following a stroke in 1999.
> "When people first started asking me where in England I was from and a
> family member asked why am I talking that way, that is when I became very
> conscious that a part of me had died during the stroke," she said.
> Four years on, she still struggles to convince people that she is a born
> and bred American.
> "People in America accuse me of lying when I say I was born in Indiana.
> "They would say 'What are you saying that for? Where in England are you
> from?'
> Scientists at Oxford University are among those trying to get to the
> bottom of the syndrome.
> Last year, they confirmed that patients can develop a foreign accent
> without ever having been exposed to the accent.
> This is because they haven't really picked up the accent. Their speech
> patterns have changed. Injury to their brain causes them to lengthen
> syllables, alter their pitch or mispronounce sounds. These changes make it
> sound like they have picked up an accent. They may lengthen syllables.
> The first case of foreign accent syndrome was reported in 1941 in Norway,
> after a young Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel injury to the brain during
> an air raid.
> Initially, she had severe language problems from which she eventually
> recovered. However, she was left with what sounded like a strong German
> accent and was ostracized by her community.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3235934.stm