Talk Like A Pirate Day

Talk Like A Pirate Day is a festival not very widespread across the Francophonie, and the reason is that it is much more difficult to speak like a pirate in French. In English, it is relatively easy: there was a clear, important and well defined maritime tradition in England, which is not the case for France, unfortunately. It is all the more difficult to speak like a pirate, that our will to be "vulgar and misguided" instinctively brings us to the existing patois, whether it is the joual of Quebec, the Acadian accent of the lower river, or the spoken Marseille. To resolve to use these languages, however, would be a serious mistake, because although the pirates were not especially polite and refined, they certainly did not speak in this way. Here are some suggestions for improving your pirate parlance and vocabulary, heavily influenced by old French, maritime lexicon and Captain Haddock