Pirates are divine beings
According to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, pirates are absolute divine beings and the original Pastafarians [Wikipedia].
Pastafarians state that these pirates were peace-loving explorers and spreaders of good will and their image as thieves and outcasts is misinformation perpetrated by mainstream organized religions.
In light of recent publicity concerning piracy in the Gulf of Aden, it is clear that the bad variety of pirate definitely does exist, however, they pale into insignificance when compared with the numbers of kind pirates - the supposed original variety - who attend PirateCon and other friendly pirate festivals around the world.
Pirates talk like...
Robert Newton, apparently. He famously portrayed Long John Silver in two movies in the 1950s and, since he came from Devon (England), he created his iconic "pirate" style of talking from his native West Country dialect [Wikipedia],
In fact, there were so many pirates originating from the West Country [West Country Pirates] that it's quite reasonable to associate the local accent with them even though it may have changed somewhat since those times.
Note: Yer very own PirateCon.info webmaster attended university in this exact same West Country. Arrr!
The basic rules t' speakin' pirate-like be as follows:
- Use a rough, throaty voice and role your words together
- Begin every sentence with "Arrr!" or "Well now"
-
Address others as: "Matey" (men, singular), "Lass" (women, singular), "Me hearties" (fellow pirates, collectively) or "Ye lubbers" (non-pirates, collectively).
Note that a "lubber" is someone who is clumsy or uncoordinated and is not a corruption of "lover" [Etymology] - Instances of the verb "to be" are generally rendered as "be" (present tense), examples: "It is" := "It be" "You are" := "Ye be" etc.
- Drop the terminal "g" from all words ending in "ing" e.g. ending := endin'
- Drop the initial "h" from all words beginning with "h" e.g. have := 'ave
- Learn some adjectives. The contemporary standard North American set of Awesome, Cool, Cute & Gross do not feature in a pirate's vocabulary.
Arrr, well now, 'ere be a few expressions translated from English into English Pirate...
| English | Pirate | Example |
| * In PirateCon speak "Booty" means booty. | ||
| Hey! | Ahoy! | Ahoy me hearties! |
| Let's have a drink | Splice the mainbrace! | Splice the mainbrace me hearties! |
| Yes | Aye | Aye, that it be |
| No | Nay | Nay ne'er |
| My | Me | 'ands off me booty |
| Stop | Avast | Avast there matey, 'ands off me booty |
| Money/Treasure | Booty* | Surrender yer booty! |
| I can see the bar! | Bar ho! | (You probably shouldn't use this one) |
| Pirate | Gentlemen o' fortune | |
| Wow! | Shiver me timbers! | |
| ha ha | Yo ho ho | |
Note that the meaning of "Grog" is variable - see the Rapscallions page for details.
Pirate history
In broad definition, the so-called "Golden Age of Piracy" ran from the 1650s to the 1720s [Wikipedia]
"Jolly Roger" can refer to any pirate flag and the term dates back to at least 1721 although, obviously, pirates were using flags long before this. The first recorded use of the skull & crossbones design is 1687. The flag served as a signal to the victims that they were outlaws and the safest course of action would be to surrender without a fight (since the punishement for a caputred pirate was death anyway, they would fight to the death if opposed) [Wikipedia]