Northern accents could die out within decades

And other stories from the stranger side of life

The river Tyne
The River Tyne running through Newcastle
(Image credit: Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Northern accents could start dying out within the next 45 years as a result of the rising dominance of southern dialects, according to a new study. Researchers at Cambridge University found children living in towns and cities across the north of England are increasingly using pronunciations more usually spoken in the south because they are easier to pick up. “What we see are changes happening in big classes of words - but not all of them,” said one researcher.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.