AYUP me ducks, art all reet?* Now I’m guessing that most of you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

However, if, like me, you originate from the East Midlands, you’ll be thinking, “Aye, not bad me owd, an’ ow’s tha’sen?”

That’s right, regional accents are thriving, and against all the odds.

Geordie, Scouse, Mancunian and Brummie, for example, are becoming more distinct, and even spreading beyond the confines of the cities they were once confined to.

Previous research had suggested that accents would merge into a national way of speaking, but apparently that’s not the case.

It’s all to do with people oop t’ north not wanting to sound like southerners – or even each other.

So, for example, people from Manchester and Liverpool, although living only half an hour apart, are proud of their accents – and how they signify their respective territories and backgrounds.

This obviously helps explain why Cilla Black, despite living on the banks of the Thames for most of her life, still sounds so Mersey – and why dyed in the wool Tykes such as Michael Parkinson and Geoffrey Boycott, having decamped to Surrey and Sandbanks, retain that distinctive Yorkshire growl.

Whenever I have to suffer the embarrassment of listening to my own voice, I cringe at the flat Gary Lineker-like tones that come from the lowlands of the not-so-golden triangle where Leicestershire meets Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.

Some of my relatives, on the other hand, still speak in a near-Biblical way, with lots of “thees” and “thous”, but they originate from the badlands of Derbyshire.

Personally, I’d quite like a Geordie accent, similar to the voiceover bloke who’s the only good thing about Big Brother. Billy Connolly’s broad Glaswegian, I’ve always thought, can be applied for either jovial or menacing ends – and I defy anyone to dislike the Irish brogue.

When I lived in Birmingham, I occasionally heard my voice ascending a couple of octaves; and during a stint in Norfolk I’d quite often sound like one of those callers to Alan Partridge’s late night chat show.

Having lived mainly in the south for 30 years, though, the rough edges have pretty much gone – and my Dorset-born children speak impeccable English (most of the time, that is, discounting the occasional “whatevaah”).

Now the experts are revising their forecasts, and say that in 40 years we’ll have between eight and 10 “super accents”; but only two of these will be in the south, based around London and Bristol.

Which means Terry Wogan’s replacement by Chris Evans is symbolic of more than ginger over grey, and Coldplay over Celine Dion – it’s also the homogenised nasal shout above the deep-throated burr, more’s the pity.

(* Roughly translated as: “I say old chap, how the devil are you?” To which the reply should be: “Toodle-pip, ta very much, and how the deuce are you too?”

Not to be confused with the West Midlands greeting, “All roit a bit?” and traditional response, “All roit?”)