RESIDENTS from Bolton are to be interviewed about the unique way people in the town speak as part of groundbreaking and detailed study of Greater Manchester dialects and accents.

Run by linguists at Manchester Metropolitan University, the Manchester Voices project, aims to celebrate the region’s “rich linguistic and cultural heritage”, building up an interactive dialect map and archive by speaking to people from the town and all nine other GM districts.

The £70,000 research project follows a pilot carried out in 2017 which revealed huge linguistic diversity in the region, including the discovery of distinct Bolton words such as “lickle”.

These findings then inspired a further investigation into the region’s language use in much greater depth.

A key part of the project will see a specially kitted-out “Accent Van” tour the town carrying out interviews and recordings of people’s stories, running poetry events and workshops in school, and quizzing participants on how they interpret the way they and their neighbours speak.

It will culminate in a permanent installation at Manchester Central Library and public archive at MMU’s Manchester Poetry Library which is due to open in 2020.