Talk Like a Pilgrim Day

Embarkation of the Pilgrims by Robert Walter Weir, c. 1857 (public domain - Brooklyn Museum online collection)

“We as little tasted of the great proportion sent us as they of our want and miseries, yet notwithstanding, they ever overswayed and ruled the business, though we endured all that is said and chiefly lived on what this good country naturally afforded.” — John Smith, 1620

Here in the United States, we’ve just celebrated Thanksgiving.

The holiday is accompanied by a feast that typically includes turkey, and many decorations can be seen to include the classic Pilgrim hat — technically called a capotain — with a buckle on it.

The Pilgrims arrived on the shores of America in 1620, bringing 17th-century English with them. But they were surprised that Samoset, one of the indigenous Americans they met, could speak English.

And through the interactions with him and with Squanto, another member of the Wampanoags, they incorporated native words into English — particularly to describe flora and fauna previously unknown to them.

Rosemary Ostler, in The United States of English: The American Language from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century, tells us: