Ok, so according to Blue Gal of Be the Change, Baby (formerly know as Blue Gal in a Red State) today is Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Well yar, ahoy, and all that… but I’d like to set our tongues on a sweeter path, for the voices we associate with pirates today was simply the way one spoke in Elizabethan England. For instance according to the sponsors of the Heart of the Forest Renaissance Faire’s Elizabethan Language Guide

Elizabethan English did not sound like modern English as it is spoken in England – no Cockney, no Uppah Clahss refinement. It was an earthy, vigorous speech.

...

AI AND AY: As in the words maid and day. It’s a flat A followed by that peasanty long I, so it’s sounded maa-eed and daa-ee.

H AND R: These consonants are always pronounced. Never drop the H, as modern Cockneys do. It’s Head, not ‘ed, Here, not ‘ere. The letter R is pronounced with all the glory of a pirate on the high seas: fatherrrr and ratherrrr and herrre, not fathah or rathah or heah. Avoid the Scots burred R, though, unless you’re playing a Scot.

Find pronunciation, grammar, and other tips here.

And for practice might I suggest a bit of Romeo and Juliet? The following can be pronounced in any accent and still sound sweet, but as Romeo would have spoken like a pirate you try too.

I am too bold, ‘tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Source: Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II

On the other hand the following pretty much must be spoken like a pirate else the final lines don’t rhyme:

O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

Source: Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 3

Speaking of those last lines: not that I want to add any more ammunition to the “come” vs “cum” porn-spellilng debate but the pronunciation guide reminds us that if one were a pirate, or an Elizabethan, one would pronounce the Latin cum and the English come the same way

SHORT U: As in the words cup or run. Sounded like a long U or double O also, so they come out coop and roon.

Now having grown up in Souther Appalachia it’s nice to learn have confirmed that ridge-runner speech isn’t that far from the old King’s (or Queen’s) English

EA: As in the words head, bread, or dead. These are given a long A pronunciation, which makes them sound very American Country: haid, braid, daid.

But I’d be no more enamored of a Talk Like Gomer Pyle day than I am of a Talk Like a Pirate day and so I’d rather seal your lips with kisses, trap your tongue tip between my lips, and reduce your vowels from ayes to sighs. And if kisses would not suffice…

Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.

Source: William Shakespeare, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, IV

... Cupid’s left me such final arrows that I might fill your quiver overflowing.