Re: THEORY: An English Koine? (was: Vowel shift (was: THEORY: Storage Vs. Computation))

In message <376FCD34.DFC17BE@...>, Sally Caves
<scaves@...> writes
>Brian Betty wrote:
>> Arr, do you be sayin' that thar be a reason for us to be speakin' like
>> this, arr?
>
>Where do you think we get this ARRRGH from when we're talking "Pirate"
>talk?
>My husband, who dressed up as a pirate for Halloween, was "arrring" all
>over
>the place.  It must be from some movie.
It's because they're escapees from the Long John Silver Ward of the
Hospital for the Over-Acting (Monty Python reference...).  You should
see the people from the Richard III Ward.

I think in the UK, Pirate-ese is a dialect of Mummerset.  Mummerset is
the accent that English people put on when they want to sound like,
well, deeply rural folk.  It's vaguely from the South-West of England,
so it's rhotic, and it's full of aaaarrrr's too...

--
John Fisher   john@drummond.demon.co.uk   johnf@epcc.ed.ac.uk