In the coastal lagoons of North Carolina is an almost mythical island. It was here Blackbeard once stalked and you can still hear the remnants of pirate dialect, imported from Elizabethan England.
Ocracoke is a remote island on the American East Coast, and home of the"Hoi Toider" dialect.
The Hoi Toide – that is to say "high tide" – is a curious sounding brogue that comes from the island's splendid isolation.
Southern Outer Banks: In the coastal lagoons of North Carolina is an almost mythical island on which Blackbeard once lived. Photo / Getty Images
A creole of Irish, Scots and West Country English accents with a measure of pirate slang -the sandbar has been a hideaway for Buccaneers since the 1700s.
"I've a lot o' people think, I'm from Australia, or Ireland," says resident fisherman Rex O'Neal, in a thick accented burr.
Separated from mainland America by thirty kilometres of lagoon the 300km barrier became a haven for pirates in the 1700s.
The only way to the coastal inlet is by ship. Preferably one with black sails.
One of the island's most famous residents was William Teach, better known as Blackbeard.
According to the Smithsonian Museum it was one of the busiest shipping channels of the 18th century and rich pickings for marauders.
It was here in 1718, that Teach met his demise "when a royal navy captain lured Blackbeard into an ambush, cut off his head, and dumped him into the lagoon."
A somewhat dubious legend has it that the decapitated captain still roams the island looking for his head. Perhaps.
One place where his legend does live on is at the hotel Blackbeard Lodge named after the privateer.
After the pirates were given a royal pardon in 1718, by King George I, Ocracoke remained an outpost for their nautical dialect.
Blackbeard's last stand: Edward Teach had his final stand at the battle off Ocracoke, in November 1718. Photo / Getty Images
In 1759 William Howard, shipmate to Blackbeard aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge, bought the island for £105. (About $33900 in modern day loot.)
And so the pirates and their strange language lived on.
Dr Walt Wolfram of North Carolina University has been studying the Hoi Toide language for over two decades, as a director of the Language and Life Project.
He's amazed to find words from Georgian and Elizabethan England preserved on the island.
When someone is looking a bit green from the ferry crossing, you wouldn't say they were 'feeling sick' but that they were 'quamish.'
When not at sea Hoi Toiders aren't on the waters, they like to sit out on their "pizer" (porch) and let the world go by. This is supposedly a corruption of the Italian world "piazza."
Then there's "dingbatter", "meehonkey", or "awflander". These words are just some of the many that Hoi Tiders have for discussing their favourite topic: people not from Ocracoke.
The only way to the coastal inlet is by ship. Preferably one with black sails. Photo / Getty Images
However for the all Ocracoke's remarkable words and cultural borrowings, it appears that the dialect is fast leaving the island.
"What's happening is that some of these small dialects that thrive on isolation are dying because isolation is a thing of the past," Dr Wolfram told the BBC in a recent profile of the island. "They still pick up terms and vocabulary, but when a kid from the island retains a strong dialect, that was the norm and now it's an exception."
Within one to two generations, it'll be gone," said Dr Wolfram. "It's dying out and we can't stop that."
