Medical experts stunned after dentist visit sparks unexplained accent change for Aussie woman

Goulburn woman Kim was born in Sydney and grew up in rural NSW, but you'd never tell from her accent.

Despite never setting foot in England, a few years ago she began speaking with a thick Yorkshire inflexion, leaving medical experts stunned.

It began as a visit to the dentist for a toothache four years ago but quickly spiralled into a life-and-death journey for Kim, who was diagnosed with stage-four skin cancer inside her mouth.

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Radiation and chemotherapy followed, along with multiple surgeries to remove and rebuild her lower jaw.

She had to learn to talk all over again, and when she did, it wasn't with her normal Aussie twang.

"My sister said 'mum, she sounds posh'," Kim said.

"I was just a normal Aussie gal that spoke Australian, now I don't.

"Where it's come from I don't know."

Speech pathologist Dr Emma Charter, who is assisting Kim in her rehabilitation, said medical experts were struggling to pin point the cause of Kim's case of foreign accent syndrome.

"Usually foreign accent syndrome follows a brain injury, or perhaps a stroke," Charter said.

"But in Kim's case, she hasn't had a stroke, she hasn't had a brain injury, she's undergone major reconstructive surgery [and] has come out with speech problems that we expect, and some we don't expect, and we actually don't have a good answer as to why.

"It's never something that's been encountered before in documented or in my clinical history of working as a speech pathologist."

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Unfortunately, Charter believes it's unlikely Kim's Aussie accent will return.

"Mostly because of the jaw reconstruction, partly because of the accent, which, you know, while it's sort of really unknown at the moment, accents are harder to change after around four years, and she's around four years after her after her tumour removal," Charter said.

While Kim is committed to "work tirelessly" with Charter to work on her speech, she says she's just "happy to be here, alive".

In the meantime, she's diving into Surfebruary - a month's worth of daily dips to raise money for cancer research at Chris O'Brien Lifehouse.

Last year, Kim and her supporters raised $21,000.

"I want to do what I can for them, they've done what they can for me," she said.

To find out more about Kim's Surfebruary mission, click here.