International talk like a Pirate Day

Sunday The 19^th September.

It’s tomorrow! Aha me hearty’s! Batton down the hatches! Walk the plank!

*cough cough* embarrassed silence.

Moving swiftly on, I recently did a blog about International talk like a Pirate day, you can find out more about it either here, or on their own page here.

In the blog I said the day, whilst obviously being a bit tongue in cheek, was based on the golden age of Piracy. But what was the golden age of piracy. When you think of the term pirate what springs to mind?
Wooden legs?

Parrots?
Jolly Rogers?
Slang terms such as “Arghhh”, “Land Lubbers” and “Avast me Hearty”?

Would it surprise you to learn that not one real pirate, in the history of pirating ever spoke like that? Our modern day image of a pirate that looks like this has developed slowly over the last one hundred years or so, starting in 1883 with Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The effect of Treasure Island on our perception of pirates cannot be overestimated. Stevenson linked pirates forever with maps, black schooners, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders. The treasure map with an X marking the location of the buried treasure is one of the most familiar pirate props. Before this book most of these things had never even been heard off, most especially buried treasure. In reality, most piracy of that era was conducted by Islamic captains based in North Africa who were in the employ of Ottoman Sultanates such as Barbarossa, who contrary to false propaganda was not a free living, high seas sailing rebel but a politician who is chiefly remembered for uniting Algeria and Tunisia.
The terms Yo ho ho/ Davy Jones and Avast all also appeared for the first time in J.M Barries work Peter Pan. He simply invented them to make Captain Hook sound more ‘piratey’. They had never been uttered before then.

The modern image of the ‘Hollywood’ pirate, with his “Yarr?” and his “Arrrrr” was invented by this man, Robert Newton, the star of Disney 1950’s release Treasure Island. He invented the accent that is forever now associated with pirates.
So our traditional view of pirates never existed, except in the heads of certain writers.

Strange but true