Expert: Darsh - 8/6/2006

Question
There is a place in England I believe called Sommerset where everyone has a "pirate-like" dialect? Someone said that that's where the pirate dialect came from?

Answer
Somerset (pronounced as though spelled "Summerset") is a county in the south-west of England. One of the most expensive one though both with regards to the living cost and the property prices (just as any of the counties of Southern England).

You may be right saying that "pirate-like" dialect could be associated with Somerset. One logical explanation would be that somerset is just on top of the Dorset (county) and Dorset is the place where on its coastline (English Channel), 3 boatloads of Vikings landed in 737.

As you may've known that Vikings (people who're originally from Scandinavia i.e. Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Northern Germany) were Pirate themselves, who started to move out of Scandinavia in search for better land for farming. Not that they're inborn "pirates" but the desperation of finding better land mass made them drive away from their own homeland of Scandinavia & settling elsewhere, for which they'd to face many wars with locals. During three centuries (from 7th to 10th), Vikings appeared along the coasts and rivers of Europe, as traders, but also as raiders, and even as settlers.

Viking navigators also opened the road to new lands to the north and to the west, resulting in the colonization of Shetland, Orkney, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and even an expedition to, and a short-lived settlement in, Newfoundland circa 1000.

Interestingly, Vikings weren't JUST "pirates" who set out to loot people, but they're widely known for their craftmenship.

This means that, people with their family name as "smith" (which is the most popular surname BOTH in the USA and the UK) "goldsmith", "blacksmith", "hammersmith", etc. refers to some Viking connection.