How often in the run of a day do you say "I'm just after doing that" or "I'm after telling him to stop that?" Usually, with the unique features of Newfoundland English, we use them more than we think. This is something we hear all the time around the province, and while it sounds normal to us, other people think it's completely nonsensical.

In a conversation with my father over the weekend, I made a joke about how i've been waiting for him to fix something for me for over two weeks now. He just stopped and looked at me and said, "I'm after telling you a million times to keep reminding me!" We just laughed it off (but I did get the thing fixed later that day!), and went on about our day. I often have this type of conversation with my dad, as does the rest of my family, as he tends to be a bit forgetful sometimes. Usually in a joking manner, or just some friendly reminder as I see him throughout the day.

 Like I said before, this sounds completely fine to us, and is a sentence structure that is common for Newfoundland. But really, the use of after in this sentence is completely unnecessary. In our dialect of English, we tend to avoid using the past participle of the verb to have. While no one can be completely sure why we still do this, we do know it originated from the Irish influences to language in Newfoundland. Most of the influence and comes from the towns of Waterford and Cork in Ireland, whose people settled here in very large numbers to work as fishermen in the early nineteenth century. In the traditional Irish language, they do not use the verb "to have" at all, but rather have another word which translates to "after." This translation must have stuck close to the Irish settlers in the area, and became a distinct feature of the Newfoundland dialect, as we still hear this today. This just goes to show how much Newfoundlanders have held on to their past, and which pieces of our heritage have become so important, even things in language. After so many years have passed, we are still using, and saying things the first people to come to our province brought here.