COCKNEY will disappear from use on London streets within a generation, and be replaced by the kind of English dialect spoken by Ali G, according to new research.

The 650-year-old cockney accent is dying off in the UK capital, as traditional speakers emigrate to the Home Counties of Essex and Hertfordshire, The Evening Standard newspaper reports.

It is being replaced by multicultural London English, heavily influenced by West Indian patois, Bangladeshi and remnants of old cockney.

"In much of the East End of London, the cockney dialect that we hear now spoken by older people will have disappeared within a generation," said researcher Paul Kerswill, who is a professor of sociolinguistics at Lancaster University.

"People in their 40s will be the last generation to speak it and it will be gone within 30 years."

Since the 1960s east London has become home to immigrants from the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent, as well as South America, Africa and central Asia.

The new hybrid language that has developed as a result is known in slang terms as "Jafaican", which is used by the likes of comedy character Ali G and rapper Dizzee Rascal.

Professor Kerswill will publish his full findings next year.

Originally published as Cor blimey! Cockney dying out in London