No, it’s not Talk Like a Pirate Day, but it is time to learn about the origins of the pirate accent – wait, is this a Disney thing?! Kind of.
Arrggggghhhh, there be trouble ahead, me shipmates! At one point or another, we’ve all talked like a pirate. Maybe we were imitating a movie, or perhaps somewhere along the way, we just learned it because it’s everywhere! But have you ever stopped to wonder where the pirate accent originated from?
The pirate accent might be the most famous accent around the world. There’s even a Talk Like a Pirate Day (which should really be a federal holiday, in my opinion). From pop culture to classic literature, pirate lore makes for fascinating stories. But that’s just it; we forget that everything we celebrate about pirates today came from actual events, including the accent.
In the video below, learn where the pirate accent originated. For example, did you know that most of what we consider pirate-speak today came from an actor, and not actual pirates? No, not Johnny Depp, you idiots! I’m talking about Robert Newton as Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney movie Treasure Island? Or that much of early pirate vocabulary came from the West Country in England? Find out everything you could ever want to know about the pirate accent:
