Northern accents are merging into one dialect - except for those from Liverpool and Newcastle. linguists believe.
They claim a “new variety” is emerging in the cities of Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester.
Younger, middle-class people now use a “general northern English” dialect, which makes it harder to distinguish what area they are from.
A University of Manchester team found that while some accent features had vanished, people still used short vowels in words like “glass” and “bath”.
They also suggested that prejudice against accents was in decline.
Linguistics expert Dr Patrycja Strycharczuk said: “It may seem as though local accents are dying out but we believe we’re actually seeing a new variety becoming established – educated, urban and northern.
"Its prestige has increased and people are now less tempted to lose their accent if they’ve been to university or do a lot of public speaking.”
A voice analysis machine testing 105 speakers from northern cities correctly identified people from Leeds 67% of the time, Manchester, where singer Liam Gallagher comes from, 63% and Sheffield, birthplace of athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill, 55%.
The study found Leeds and Sheffield accents “highly confusable”. However, it said Scouse and Geordie accents were still distinct.
The test correctly identified Liverpudlians residents 82% of the time and Newcastle residents 71%.
