Xenoglossy
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Xenoglossy is the putative paranormal phenomenon in which a person is able to speak or write a language he or she could not have acquired by natural means. For example, a person who speaks Swedish fluently, but who is not a native Swedish speaker, has never studied Swedish, never been to a Swedish-speaking country, and never associated with Swedish speakers or had any other source of exposure to the Swedish language, would be said to exhibit xenoglossy. The existence of xenoglossy is not generally accepted by skeptic linguists such as Samarin (1976) and Thomason (1984, 1987, 1996). However, psychiatrist and paranormal researcher Ian Stevenson documented several cases that he considered authentic (Stevenson, 2001). The words derive from Greek ξένος (xenos), "foreigner" and γλῶσσα (glōssa), "tongue" or "language".
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