April 6, 2012
This was the first Imponderable and it is still one of my favorites.
From June 23, 2011
Foreign Accent Syndrome is a real though hilarious malady. Simply put, some people with head injuries hurt a certain region of the brain that controls speech, leading to strange new speech patterns that sound like foreign accents. This must have been one awful root canal.
Yeah, I didn’t believe it either, but I looked it up and it is real. It doesn’t happen often, but it is documented. So in theory, someone from Nebraska can hit his head and wind up speaking like Patrick Stewart. The flip side is true too. Patrick Stewart could go in for a routine cavity fill and come out talking like Larry the Cable Guy.
Oh, how I wish that would happen. That’s hysterical. Sit back and think about it for a while. “Mr. La Forge, the warp engines have developed a negative feedback and the ventral stabilizer needs repair. Report to engineering and GIT-R-DONE!!!”
Star Trek: TNG really needed a few more rednecks, that’s for sure.
But to get back on track, reading the article brings up an imponderable question about British dentistry. The people of England are well-known for poor dentistry and bad teeth. So I submit to you this question about the British accent: is the British accent simply a matter of bad teeth? Could it simply be that the British accent is not a natural development but came about due to lousy dentists? Maybe there is no British accent, simply a neural reaction caused by head trauma.
Consider that Colonial Americans, upon leaving England and developing their own nation and dental system, within a few short generations lost the British accent.
It is a real chicken or the egg type of question. Which came first- the British accent or the bad teeth?
The question is Imponderable.
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
You’ve got to wonder what Pharaonic Egyptians sounded like. Egyptologists who look at the mummies teeth always say they were in TERRIBLE condition, mostly from getting LOTS of sand in their bread.
That, & their language had no A,E,I,O, or U sounds.
Of course, Hollywood of the early 20th century had Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc. speaking with British accents, anyway. It’s like the Swiss Army Pocket Knife of lingustics.
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British has always been Hollywood’s go-to accent. Maybe it is just easier to assume that the British Empire (and the British accent) spread everywhere than to actually get an authentic sound from an actor who may or may not be barely passable when it comes to speaking English. While most people have probably heard an English accent, who would recognize Sumerian?
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Makes sense. I can’t imagine Herod, Caesar, Nero, Alexander the Great, Ramesses the Great, Philip of Macedonia, Ptolemy, etc. speaking with a French, German or Russian accent in a documentary or movie.
The sounds of many ancient instruments from the Nile, Euphrates & Indus valleys have been reproduced, but what they probably sounded like is still vague & nebulous.
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