It might be time to say "sithee" to the traditional Tyke way of speaking... and it's all down to t'internet.

Changing language and speech patterns are leading to the demise of traditional Yorkshire dialect, students have discovered.

The internet and wider communication are all leading to a nationwide style of speech and use of words.

According to the investigation carried out by students at Craven College in Skipton - backed by a £20,000 hand out from the Heritage Lottery fund - old-fashioned dialect words are on the wane in God's own county.

The findings are the result of 18 months of work by the students interviewing people aged 18 and over about dialect.

Targeted were the folk of Airedale, Wharfedale and Nidderdale. Among the people quizzed were the captive audience at Broughton Game Show, Skipton, members of Great Wood and Horse Close community centre in Skipton, and the residents of Gargrave The result is the Our Voices exhibition at the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes, where visitors can listen to dialect words and commentaries on dialect by authors and academics.

Recordings made by the students of conversations using the vanishing words form part of the exhibition which is to become a permanent database.

It allows listeners to hear them in context in a bid to understand them better.

Visitors are also invited to make contributions of their own.

So pleased are the lottery bosses that the college has been encouraged to continue for another six months exploring the language of Swaledale and Wensleydale.

Teacher Jo Cummins, herself a Yorkshire lass, believes the day could be not far off when we all use the same words wherever we come from.

And she blames the new media. "There is a worry with the internet, texting and media that things are becoming diluted and watered down," she said.

"An international language is coming in, the sort of thing everybody speaks and can understand.

"Words which were specific to individual communities are being lost because these communities are not as isolated as they once were."

The survey, she says, backs her up because words commonly used two generations ago are now a mystery to many young people.

Emma Franks, of Sutton, near Skipton, a 19-year-old student studying A-level English language and media, was one of the team involved in the research.

She said: "The dialect I use is modern and different from the older generation. Modern words are taking over from the old terms.

"For the younger generation language is a bit like fashion in that these words come in and then go out."

Her colleague Carol Butler, 20, of Ilkley, who is studying A level English and psychology, said: "I still use some of the words like skiving' for truancy or getting out of a chore.

"What I found interesting was that people in Gargrave use the word room' for the lounge or living room."

But while traditional dialect is slowly vanishing, people are still proud of their Yorkshire accent.

Researchers found that many tykes emphasise their accents even more when they make visits out of the county.

l Dialect is still being preserved by the villagers of Cowling near Skipton, where the voices of older residents recording their history often contain dialect words.

And there is still reference to the once common "by-name", to identify a person by his job, where he lived or even his past relatives, and used instead of a surname when there were numerous people with the same name in the village.

e-mail: clive.white @bradford.newsquest.co.uk