Why pirates say arr

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Renew Your Membership. Member FAQ. The Children's Museum Today's Hours: 10 am—5 pm. Buy Tickets. Things to Do. Museum Blog. Why Do Pirates Say Arrr? We answer this burning question in this edition of Never Stop Asking Why. Sign Up for Email. Read more: Dinky-di Aussies: how slanguage helped form a new national identity. And if our short introduction has whet your appetite, check out the talk like a pirate website or use a pirate translator. Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth.

Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Karl's answer, that this originated with Robert Newton, is probably true, but why would Newton choose a Westcountry accent? Pirates traditionally operated in the "new world" of the Caribbean and eastern coasts of the American continents, and as such English pirates would typically operate out of the western side of England. The biggest ports on that side of England are Bristol and Liverpool; Bristol is closer to London, where no doubt the pirates would want to sell their plunder, and it's also further south than Liverpool, thus marginally closer to the Caribbean.

Perhaps more telling though is the terrain of the South West Peninsula. Cornwall and parts of southern Devon have many cliffs, with sheltered coves, caves and bays that made ideal hideaways for smugglers and pirates. Indeed there is plenty of archaeological evidence for smuggling and related activities in the area. The rocky coast was also the cause of many shipwrecks, and historically the locals would think little of plundering the cargo of wrecked ships off the coast; with such activities ingrained in the local culture it's feasible that piracy was a natural next step for many.

A final factor is that the main occupations in the area were fishing and mining; low paid manual work that provided handy skills in seafaring and boring rock to create secret tunnels and caves - very handy for smugglers and pirates!

There was no standard language on a pirate ship. Crews were typically multinational in makeup. Often, crewmen were pressed from prize ships, so they could be from any number of countries. The most interesting thing is that anyone on a pirate ship could understand anything at all, given the many nationalities the sailors pirates were. Not only English, Dutch and French aboard, but often African as well; former slaves often joined the ranks rather than return to a life of slavery.

Can you imagine the conversations and dialects going on aboard ship during any down time? And how could they ever understand the commands required to run a large vessel on the open sea, let alone during the heat of battle? I'm not sure, but the answer is probably in this book, the Pirate Primer , which uses real pirates, movies, literature, etc as sources.

There was and remains to this day a dialect of British English wherein "arrr" would be the appropriate spelling to imitate their pronunciation of "aye", which is commonly used to express agreement with some statement. IMHO, those who append "g" are influenced by another popular expression of disgust usually rendered "aargh". Granted, pirate ships were crewed by miscreants from all of the British Isles and parts of Europe, and the romantic notion of a standardized pirate lingo is almost certainly fictional -- but, if I were to pick one element that most likely would have been heard on many pirate ships, "arrr" would be the winner.

The The Monthly Review refers to:. Here, "shiver" means to break into splinters. It only makes sense to say with respect to a wooden boat. In the play Rule Britannia: a loyal sketch, in two acts , at page 31, Thomas tells Captain Anchor:. Yes, Sir, your heart does not beat alone for your mistress; for shiver my timbers if it did not thump most manfully for your King and country in the late glorious action.

Similarly, "hearties" was a genuine term for comrades starting in the s, not limited to pirates or necessarily nautical. Soldiers and sailors who do not like flogging, Hasten to him, and he'll teach you to brew Mischief in Church and State, Sedition in debate ; — Forward, my hearties! So, in conclusion, "shiver my timbers" and "my hearties" did have a factual basis but were not limited to pirates. It is also the source of the present tense use of "be" as in "I be chill'in" that is common in parts of the American south settled by English of the region.

Louis Stevenson spent sometime in the region, liked the unique sound of the vernacular and used it to create one of the most memorable characters in English literature. I'm not sure if anyone still speaks it today. I did a write up about it years ago when talk like a Pirate Day first started.

I'll see if I can find the references. Yep, it was the West Country Dialect as noted by others. You can see it in the following:. Though much of the modern impression of "pirate slang" is undoubtedly shaped by fiction beginning with "Treasure Island" in particular , there is a fair amount of truth buried deep. In my view, the best-written piratical dialogue in modern fiction draws a lot from period prose.

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