BYE 'eck - Yorkshire folk are reet proud of their regional accent.

According to the results of a BBC online poll out today, half the Yorkshire people questioned said they were proud of their accent.

However, almost the same percentage from the region said they wished they had another accent at times to make them sound more important.

Fifty-eight per cent of people polled in Yorkshire said they were proud of their accent, with 56 per cent saying they occasionally wished they could change it.

Acomb ward councillor Coun Ken King, who described himself as "Yorkshire born and bred", said people were right to be proud of their accent.

He said: "The York accent is probably different to the rest of Yorkshire - it certainly isn't as broad as parts of Yorkshire - but there's still the old Yorkshire accent in there and I think people should be proud if it.

"A lot of people in York think they don't have much of an accent, but if you move away to another area the difference is amazing."

Dialect expert Dr Arnold Kellett, of Knaresborough, is a former vice president of the Yorkshire dialect society and author of the Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore.

He said: "The Yorkshire dialect is a very ancient form of English and the Yorkshire accent is a derivative of that and we should be proud of it.

"I'm all for the Yorkshire accent and anything that keeps the distinctiveness of Yorkshire.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to speak with a Yorkshire accent and switch to standard English when required."

Asked which celebrities people liked listening to, respondents in Yorkshire voted Sean Connery and Trevor McDonald as having the most pleasant voices and Ian Paisley as having the least pleasant.

Billy Connolly and David Beckham were voted second and third respectively in a list of celebrities with the least pleasant voice.

In the country as a whole, the Leeds accent ranked higher in terms of pleasantness than prestige or helpfulness in getting ahead in the jobs market in general. The accent was ranked in the bottom half of the 34 regional accents surveyed.

The Leeds accent was rated as more pleasant than accents including those from London, Belfast, Cardiff and Bristol.

Updated: 10:24 Monday, January 17, 2005