haiga

Catalan

Verb

haiga

1. (colloquial Northern, Balearic) first-person singular present subjunctive of haver

Estonian

Noun

haiga

1. comitative singular of hai

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈaiɡa/ [ˈai̯.ɣ̞a]
• Rhymes: -aiɡa
• Syllabification: hai‧ga

Etymology 1

Assumption due to many other verbs having -g- inserted for their first-person present indicative and for all their present subjunctive (e.g. poner has pongo as its first-person present indicative and has -g- present in all its present subjunctive, and so does hacer, caer, oír, and decir, along with many others). The -g- stem replaced many older verb stems, included -e-, -i-, -y-, all inherited from Latin, but did not replace the stems in the verb haber. Haiga was occasionally used in Old Spanish but never gained enough use to replace haya as other verb conjugations did with their verb.

Verb

haiga (archaic, dialectal, proscribed, sometimes used as a joke)

1. (chiefly Mexico, archaic) Alternative form of haya (“there is, there are”)
   • 2003, Hugo Paredero, ¿Cómo es un recuerdo? La dictadura contada por los chicos que la vivieron, 426:

     Que haiga trabajo, que haiga muchos trabajos en el mundo para ganar plata.

     Let there be jobs, let there be lots of jobs so everyone in the world can earn money.

   Digamos que no haiga agua en tu casa, ¿no te preguntarías por qué e irías a investigar?

   Suppose there is no water in your house, wouldn't you wonder why and go investigate?

Usage notes

• Haiga, as a conjugation of haber, is considered incorrect by the Royal Spanish Academy, the correct conjugation is haya.
• Despite being declared incorrect by the Royal Spanish Academy, it is still widely used regionally by people, especially those of lower income and as such is sometimes used to imitate them in jokes.

Etymology 2

From the phrase el coche más grande que haiga [sic] (literally “the biggest car there is”). haiga (see the first etymology under this section) is an incorrect conjugation of the verb haber (the correct form is haya) and is often linked to how a person of low income speaks. Big cars were too linked with low-income individuals who wanted to appear very important, thus haiga was retained as a name for big cars.

Noun

haiga m (plural haigas)

1. (rare, derogatory, Spain) a huge and flashy motorcar, automobile

Further reading

• “haiga”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10