So I am in college and have noticed that my roommate has this very strange way of speaking and forming sentences. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before, and strangely enough, aside from his unusual writing and speech patterns, he seems to function like an average person otherwise. No unusual movements or mannerisms. Nothing unusual about his appearance either. Honestly, no one would think there was anything wrong with him until listening to him speak for the first time. Although he can give single word answers without anyone suspecting, his condition (or whatever it is) becomes more apparent once he tries to speak in full sentences. Although the content of what he’s saying is barely coherent, there is nothing actually wrong with the sound of his voice itself (so no slurring, lisping, stuttering, stammering, etc.) and he clearly understands social nuances by using body language like nodding while giving an affirmative response and then shaking his head when giving a negative response. Honestly, mostly everyone on the campus uses his expressions to figure out what he’s trying to say, so as to avoid making him repeat himself. He has no problem maintaining eye contact, no obsessive or compulsive tendencies, and can also laugh, showing he understands humor, so I don’t suspect this of being an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. And he was also born in the US, making him a native English speaker, so that would make his broken speech not attributable to struggles learning a new language or a hard-to-understand foreign accent.

I would also like to specify I’ve had absolutely no problems with my roommate. He cleans up after himself, doesn’t take things that belong to me, and follows instructions perfectly. He’s practically the ideal roommate, although I’ll admit, it is very hard trying to decipher what he says. I want to ask him if he had a stroke or some sort of traumatic brain injury, but I don’t want to be rude. Sometimes, he‘ll leave his work or an assignment out on a table, and I’ll just look at it out of curiosity if I happen to be walking by. From what I’ve gathered, he’s majoring in mathematics (dunno which branch) and appears to be a wizard at it from what I can tell, if his graded papers are any indication (Nothing below the 95-100 range). Then I looked through some of his written essays (none of which graded) and realized his strange sentence-mixing wasn’t just a verbal disability either. I scanned through several papers of word salad just to figure out what the topic he was writing on was. Now I’m wondering how the hell the professors even read his work and grade it. It must be a nightmare.

Here is an example of something he wrote, just to illustrate how he talks both in speech and writing:

”As a society, we must be in the knowing of that true which it is. But for why do we do this? For say, that knowledge is how we are of influencing by ourself. And as so, haven’t semantic as the ethicalness of drift. Such will more liking as it had before on previous centuries. Of course modern. A cultural for now considering drift past last timings.“ 

So does anyone on here know of any neurological disorders that may result in this? Because I’m really curious to know what this guy‘s story is, but I feel uncomfortable asking him directly, as I don’t want to bring up traumatic memories for him on the slight chance there was an accident that may have caused this. It‘s the same reason I wouldn’t want to ask someone why they have a scar or wear a wig. It just feels too personal for me to pry. Looking through some of his stuff to find what meds he takes might provide some leads, but that’s such a huge invasion of privacy that I would feel bad for doing it, especially considering how much he respects my privacy. So yeah, if this rings any bells for anyone, please let me know.