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Happy International ‘Talk Like a Pirate’ Day

Robert Newton

It’s “International Talk Like a Pirate” Day. (For more on this holiday, see Wikipedia.)

Did you know that the modern stereotype of “pirate speech” was actually invented by English actor Robert Newton in the 1950 Walt Disney film Treasure Island? Newton used his native West Country dialect as the basis for the speech of Long John Silver.

Would you like to learn this dialect? It’s remarkably close to the Hampshire dialect, which Paul teaches. Check it out here.