Pirate accent

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Pirates in film, television and theatre are generally depicted as speaking English in a particular accent and speech pattern that sounds like a cross between a West country accent and an old English accent, similar to that of Robert Newton's performance as Long John Silver in the 1950 film Treasure Island. However, the characteristic speech patterns of fictional pirates appear to pre-date Newton's performance, for example in J. Warren Kerrigan's Irish-accented performance as Peter Blood in the 1924 film Captain Blood.

It is unlikely that this was the case in real life, since, even though many English-speaking pirates sailed out of Bristol, they came from a wide variety of regional backgrounds, and pirates in general came from a wide variety of countries.

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