Spanish Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, teachers, students and Spanish language enthusiasts in general wanting to discuss the finer points of the language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
What does the word "Callaíta" (title of the song by Bad Bunny) mean? If it is a made-up word or a proper name, what is its etymology?
Google Translate will translate the lyric "ella es callaita" in the song as "she is quiet" -- but only if you omit the accent (if you include the accent, then Google Translate will not translate the word).
However, I am skeptical of the translation of "callaíta" as "quiet" for the following reasons:
Callaíta comes from callada (quiet) + -ita (diminutive suffix) → calladita → callaíta:
Qué significa Callaíta:
Callaíta puede ser una mujer tímida, reservada o de pocas palabras, aunque esto no es todo lo que significa callaíta.
La palabra callaíta no solo es usado como un adjetivo calificativo, también es usada como un mandato. Por ejemplo, pedirle a una mujer que no diga ni una palabra o que guarde silencio.
As others have said, it comes from callar / calladita. But it doesn't only mean quiet, it could also mean something like "low profile", possibly with a sense of being overlooked, unnoticed, or maybe underestimated. The lyrics might be implying she used to be like that, maybe still is in a way, but something happened and she changed into an apparently damaged party girl.
Callaíta
verbo: callar
participio: callada
Cogemos callada y le hacemos el diminutivo femenino: calladita
Y a partir de aquí, callaíta, suprimimos la d y metemos un acento para romper el diptongo.
This is a similar case to some lyrics from some rappers, you can hear "walk'em", which means "walk them". It is not standard but it is the common pronunciation in many dialects. It is the same case for callaíta, sentaíta etc.
It's "calladita", meaning quiet or even shy, reserved. I first heard it callaita with bad bunny and might be because they pronounce things differently depending on what country they are from.
