This missing “u” is quite common in Spanish and Catalan, and it puzzles me because, unusually, the written form doesn’t echo a verbal anomaly: I’ve never heard anyone pronounce the word in this fashion. However, a bit of baracking in pre-WWI emails produces this bit of Madrid vernacular by Carlos Arniches, which I assume not to be a misprint:
Avelino Gracias. (A Benita.) ¿Quie usté inagurarme este chato, Benita?
Benita (Muy huraña y hablando con la boca llena) No, señor; no quiero na.
(El amigo Melquiades o Por la boca muere el pez)
The “Germanes Clarisses” of the short-lived convent/retreat of St Elizabeth at Lavern came from Barcelona, where their institution lives on in the street name, Elisabets, and are apparently now spreading the new orthography in Huesca.
Similar posts
Back soon
That’s how they spell it on Lavern-Subirats railway station too. It’s a dialectal variant.