Is this man a ‘clift’?

The American Literacy Convoy to Ireland finished writing up its report yesterday having spent 32 days touring all the counties in Ireland. The most startling revelation is that they believe the lingo spoken in Tyrone is actually a separate and distinct language from English or Irish and is urging the Dublin government to either cherish and promote the Red Hand tongue or ban it completely.

Early indications suggest the Dail is thinking of outlawing the dialect with stern punishments for any Tyronnies heard speaking it outside of their own county, especially in Dublin or Kildare. A government spokesman told us:

“We weren’t expecting anything to come from this – just an excuse for a few Yanks to come over to kiss the Blarney Stone and sink a few stout. It wasn’t until we reached the Tyrone section that we knew something was wrong. It seems that the Yanks couldn’t make head nor tail of anyone in Tyrone. We’d been saying this for years in Dublin. Around the All-Ireland period we hire Tyrone ex-pats to serve in the bars and cafes here so we can get these odd breed of northerners what they want.”

Dr Hillary Philpot, chief literacy coordinator in Obama’s government, was the first to spot the mystery language when he watched a man from Coalisland do a crossword in a bar in the town. He wrote the following:

“I watched a rather hairy and unkempt young man, about the age of 40, stare at a crossword intently. I studied him closely and he appeared to be stuck on the first clue. It asked for a 5-letter word meaning ‘a foolish person’. Knowing it was ‘idiot’ I waited for the penny to drop with the young gentleman. About 25 minutes later he exclaimed ‘Ah fer feck sake lak biys, howd a nat know thon’ and proceeded to fill out the answer. To my amazement he wrote ‘clift’. I’ve searched every dictionary since. No such word. He seemed rather pleased with himself.”

Kenny is to announce a bank of words not allowed to be spoken outside of Tyrone in order to contain the language up there. They include: tay, flure, dure, windee, bizem, yousuns, kkarrr, kkarrrpet, ggarrrdin, blade, coul, oul, houl and locka, . Also, when asked a question, the Tyronnies simply don’t say ‘yes or no’ e.g: “Are yousuns coming home?”  – “We are”. From now on, a simple yes or no is required. The new measures are to be introduced in the morning.