I found a very interesting news outlet report about a condition called Foreign Language Syndrome (FLS) which you have to distinguish from Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). I wrote a post about that a few years ago. The latter is common by comparison with FLS. FAS is a tendency to speak with a foreign inflection, not speak or be unable to speak a different language, which is what FLS would be.
There are a handful of cases, all within the last 20 years, most of them associated with receiving anesthetic agents prior to surgeries. All could speak more than one language; in other words, they didn’t wake up from anesthesia with the ability to speak another language they never learned before.
I could find only one web link to a case report (see below) about FLS, published about 3 years ago, which is what the news story was about. In fact, the authors of this report describe the case of a 17-year-old male who suffered FLS (forgot his native Dutch language, but who also spoke English) after knee surgery, noting that the other known cases were subjects of news stories.
Humbaba qabDaj luchenmoH Humanpu”e’ ‘ej ghaytan tera’ tach ‘elpu’ jupwI’ ‘e’ vIHon. chaq wa’ Qib rurbogh taS QIpmey, Huj jaghmey luchoHlu’ta’ ‘ach, qaStaHvIS mInDu’ vISuq.
Oops, sorry, accidentally started babbling in Klingon. I meant to say:
Based on the case report, FLS might be an emergence delirium, caused by the choice of a particular anesthetic agent. Emergence delirium is delirium caused by waking up from anesthesia after surgery, which I’ve experienced a couple of times, although I have difficulty remembering the episodes.
Kiu(j) ne eksklud alia kaŭz por FLS, kvankam verŝajne, plimulto retrov plimalpli tute post du tagojn antaŭ la operacio.
Rats, happened again, with Esperanto. What I meant:
That doesn’t rule out other causes for FLS, although it looks like most people recover more or less completely after a couple of days out from the surgeries.
More studies are needed.
Reference: Salamah, H.K.Z., Mortier, E., Wassenberg, R. et al. Lost in another language: a case report. J Med Case Reports 16, 25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13256-021-03236-z
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