My profesor says that the combination gn is pronounced like jota, for example: digna is pronounced dijna. I would like to know if there is a country or a province in which it is pronounced as he says. Thank you.
My Spanish professor says that the combination gn in Spanish is pronounced like the letter J (jota) In Spanish, for example: He says that digna is pronounced dijna. ignorar is pronounced ijnorar, resignar is pronounced resijnar etc'. I have looked at your site and as I thought it is never pronounced like he says. I would like to know if there is a country or a province in which it is pronounced as he says?. Thank you very much and have a nice day.
Shuka.
7 Answers
I've heard a fair number of different regional Spanish accents and I've never heard it pronounced that way. Where is your professor from?
I am a native speaker from Málaga (in the south of Spain). In the southern part of Spain, most people would pronounce it "ihnorar" (with a very soft English h). In the northern half of Spain, most people would pronounce it "ijnorar" (they pronounce "g" as in "gitano").
According to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), g=j only in the groups "ge, gi". So the "correct" pronounciation of IGnorar is the similar to the English word bIG (but frankly, few Spaniards even approach that).
It's true that many speakers from Southern Spain and parts of America would drop the g- in words like agua, igual, Guadalajara, agujero (pronouncing them aua, iual, uadalajara, aujero).
Silliness: the gamma-nu pronounciation in Greek is not -ñ. Neither is Latin a derivative from Greek (in Latin, gn was pronounced as it should be pronounced in Spanish according to RAE's rules). Nobody, nowhere in the Spanish-speaking countries, pronounces -gn- as Ñ (except in loanwords from Italian or French, and there aren't many such).
I think your teacher might be wrong. The word digno/digna should be pronounced: [deeg’-no, nah]
Check out this link for the correct pronunciation of the word digno
I have heard some native speakers greatly under-emphasize the hard "g" sound, where "agua" sounds like more like "aa- wa", but I haven't heard it transformed into the fully aspirated "jota" sound, and certainly never with the"gn" letter pair. But...I've never been to southern Spain.
Thank you for the answer . He is from Spain Somewhere from the south.
Shuka
The combination "gn" is pronounced like an "eñe" in several different languages. Spanish is a derivative of Latin and Latin is derivative of Ancient Greek (doric, attic, homeric dialects). In ancient Greek, the gamma, nu combination is pronounced exactly as an eñe. The same is also true in Latin using the Roman alphabet. In Italian the gn is pronounce the same way. The pasta made from potatoes is gnocchi. The "gn" in Italian is properly pronounced as if it were spelled "ñoki" in Spanish. But in Spanish of the Americas, this does not apply. Words similar to "signo", every letter is pronounced individually and the same way every time (with the exception of a few diphthongs). Thank goodness that español is rational.
Is your professor a native speaker? If not, do you know which Spanish-speaking country he studied in? There are varieties of pronunciation - for example some of the Venezuelan pronunciations of the letter "x" differ from what is more commonly accepted.
I am also interested in learning about this. I am wondering where in the Spanish-speaking world the "g" is aspirated before the letter "n".
Welcome to the forum.
