"Haiga"
The subjunctive of ‘haber’. This is one of my favorite verbs, which I often say is synonymous with ‘un oso’.
Get it? A bear? I’m a big idiot. Anyway, in rural Costa Rica (as well as in other countries),
the subjunctive form of the verb ‘haber’, ‘haya’, is pronounced [haiga].
Although I have resisted acquiring this non-standard form, I must admit that not only is it easier
for me to slip in that in ‘g’ sound when using the subjunctive form, but also that the non-standard form
‘haiga’ is easier to understand in certain situations.
For example, in the sentence ‘No creo que haya azúcar en el café’ the form ‘haya’,
having preceded an [a] sound, tends to create one syllable for the two ‘a’ vowels,
hardly distinguishing itself phonetically from the indicative form ‘hay’ in the
sentence “Creo que hay azúcar en el café”.
On the other hand, if we use the non-standard form ‘haiga’ in the sentence we get
an unmistakable subjunctive form : “Espero que haiga azúcar en el café”. You still
might not be impressed with this word, ‘haiga’. Oh well—it’s your loss.
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