La camisa negra

[Tyrn]

Hi,

Juanes - La Camisa Negra


It all sounds pretty straightforward, except for the word negra. The g is completely left out. Why? I tried different accents online, from Europe, as well as from South America; nothing even remotely similar. How is it?

[poli]

Accents vary greatly in Spanish, and Colombia, where Juanes is from, is no exception. Implying the letter g may be typical of Medellin. That is the city where Juanes spent his youth. One possibility may have something to do with the Italian diaspora. As in New York English, there are whisps of Italian in accent and vocabulary. Perhaps the same is true in Medellin. The word negra in Italian is nera.

[wrholt]

In the context of the word "negro/negra" and any other word that has the sequence vowel-/g/-/r/, in most varieties of Spanish the /g/ is pronounced as a voiced fricative: usually the back of the tongue gently touches the back of the roof of the mouth, but in more casual speech some speakers may not quite touch the back of their tongue to the back of the roof of the mouth, and occasionally they may not pronounce it at all.

In this recording I can hear the presence of the /g/ most of then time where Juanes sings "negra", but sometimes it's a little stronger and sometimes it's a little weaker and barely noticeable as a change in the quality of the vowel /e/ just before pronouncing the /r/.