User:Auric/Pirate English dialect

Pirate English is a modern dialect, based around the language that pirates are supposed to have used. It has similarities with West Country English.

Linguistic background
English actor Robert Newton, who specialized in portraying pirates, especially Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney film Treasure Island and the 1954 Australian film Long John Silver and the title character in the 1952 film Blackbeard the Pirate, was born in Dorset and educated in Cornwall, and it was his native West Country dialect, which he used in his portrayal of Long John Silver and Blackbeard, contributing to the standard "pirate accent".

The archetypal pirate word "Arrr!" (alternatively "Rrrr!" or "Yarrr!"), which in West Country parlance means "yes", first appeared in fiction as early as 1934 in the film Treasure Island starring Lionel Barrymore, and was used by a character in the 1940 novel Adam Penfeather, Buccaneer by Jeffery Farnol. However, it was Robert Newton's use of it in the classic 1950 Disney film Treasure Island that popularized the interjection and made it widely remembered. It has been speculated that the rolling "rrr", a distinctive element of the speech of the West Country of England, has been associated with pirates because of the West Country's strong maritime heritage, where for many centuries fishing was the main industry (and smuggling a major unofficial one), and where there were several major ports. As a result, West Country speech in general, and Cornish speech in particular, may have been a major influence on a generalized British nautical speech.

Modern usage

 * Google Search and Facebook both have the option to choose "Pirate" as a language choice.
 * Antivirus provider Avast has, since 2011, permitted users to select "Pirate Talk" as a language option.
 * If the 2004 version of SId Meier's Pirates is played on September 19, the in-game dialogue will contain pirate speech.
 * On January 5, 2012, Minecraft added a "Pirate Speak" language option (en_pt).