Is “everyone” – kids, goofers-around, etc. – in English-speaking countries aware of that way of talking, or just US?
Where/when did the speech affectation/accent (not the holiday) get started?
Can Germans or Spaniards, etc. etc. talk like a recognizable pirate, if they wanted to?
The pirates in question are not the current Somali criminals dealt with by Navy SEALS; nor, I don’t think–and this is part of the question–the Pirates by the shores of Tripoli dealt with by the earliest Marines. (I can’t remember if the Pirates of Penszance talk that way.)
The Pirates of Penzance do NOT talk that way. Of course, They are not professional pirates, when you come right down to it; they are all noblemen who have gone wrong.
Here is a map of British dialects with the “arrrr” sound (pink) and without it (white): map. Note that Bristol, Plymouth, Penzance, and other seafaring regions are in the rrrhotic areas, while your average Londoner is outside of it. “Arrr” is kind of a shorthand for a rhotic accent.
Of course, this is sort of stupid in America, where the vast majority of us say “arrr.”
Let’s elaborate on that a bit, as it answers question #2.
As I believe Cecil has explained, the manner of speech we call “talking like a pirate” can be traced directly to Robert Newton in the 1950 movie adaptation of Treasure Island. (Newton also played Long John Silver in a sequel, and Blackbeard in 1952, and used the same accent in all three movies.)
The accent he came up with for these characters, derived from the Cornish sailors he’d known as a child, became so iconic that it was copied by other actors, and rapidly became the go-to way to identify a character as a pirate.
I share the OP’s curiosity if other languages have an accent that is identifiably “pirate”. The only clue I have is that the song “You Are A Pirate”, from the children’s show Lazy Town, is available in something like 17 languages (as was the show). I have seen it on YouTube in Swedish and Finnish and several others, and in all of them it seemed they were using the English “Pirate” accent, right down to a sprinkling of “Arr” and "Yo-ho-ho"s.
Well, due to the West Country’s coastal proximity to the rest of world, compared with the rest of the British Isles, and strong sea-faring tradition, I’d imagine many pirates in the Caribbean did have a Devonian or Cornish accent. Blackbeard and Calico Jack were both born in Bristol in Somerset ---- the most blessed natal city after Jerusalem — which is the next county over. And many pirates came from Dorsetshire, just below Somerset.
Although pirate captains seem to have come from all over; Kidd was Scottish, from Dundee, both Quelch and Blackburne, Archbishop of York, born in London, and the excellent The Dread Pirate Henry Mainwaring, loyal and true, was born in Shropshire. as was possibly Thomas Tew.
Based on the fact of the coastal proximity thing, and the fact they produced a lot of freebooting gentry, I’d reckon Breton to be the accent that might be chosen to represent French pirates. Although perhaps Marseilles could give them a run for their money in rascality.
Error: I see Tew may have been born in Northamptonshire, not Shropshire. Still about 50 miles from Gloucester, nearest sea to the south: which is deep inland for England.
And, for some reason, a very similar sound, though with less rhoticism, is used for “yes” in Swedish, if the Swedish police series we get on TV here are anything to go by, though I don’t know if it corresponds more to" Yeah" rather than something more formal.
As for “talking like a pirate”, the line of descent from Robert Newton passes through the comedian Tony Hancock, whose character in his TV series in the late 50s and early 60s was prone to doing it in a vain attempt to prove he could act.
But I think the whole “Talk Like A Pirate” day may have something more to do with the whole Pirates of the Caribbean phenomenon. I don’t think it started in Britain.
Actually, I read only 2 days ago the American comic writer Dave Barry helped set it off. Then again he’s in Florida, which had a lot of the pests itself.
[ I had just read his** Big Trouble**, an excellent paen to Florida living. ]
What could broadly be called the West Country accent actually covers quite a large area, even into areas which are now thought of as being part of the South-East region. For example the poet Pam Ayres who is one of the most famous people to speak with what is usually perceived as a broad West Country accent is actually from (what is now due to boundary changes) South Oxfordshire, which is much nearer to London than it is to Cornwall.
Yes. Speaking with a North German accent with the occasional Low German or nautical expression thrown in will get you recognized as a stereotypical sea captain.
I always thought the popularity of “talk like a pirate” day was an outgrowth of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
A quote from the Open Letter to the Kansas Board of Education that started it all:
You can learn more about the Church of the FSM here
ETA: I guess that’s not a direct answer to the OP, who is interested in how we came to assume that certain words or inflections or speech patterns are “pirate talk.”
I put Somerset for Bristol above since most people from outside thought it was half Somersetshire and half Gloucestershire ( the town near me now is mostly Suffolk but contains also Essex bits ); but I see that it has been it’s own county since 1374.
I always shoved down Bristol, Glos on forms, since Somerset has a rather rural reputation.
Not Spaniards, at least if we talk about accent only; affecting the parrot and multiple missing body parts are kind of a requirement for “looking like a naval pirate.” Members of the Pirate Party tend to look geeky.
In movies they say yohoho and talk about rum a lot, but no arrs, because for us it’s sergeants who say arr (specially drill sergeants and pissed-off sergeants; it’s both a shortening of armas and a reminder that you worthless monkeys* are one letter dumber than donkeys+).
There’s no way to talk like a pirate in Norwegian, except of course by using recognisably piratey vocabulary such as “gold”, “booty”, “walk the plank”.