Etymology: wanna

wanna

1. Eye dialect spelling of want to.

I wanna go home.

The vowel sound in the preposition “to” is pronounced as a schwa in oral English. The consonant sound /t/ in “want to” is pronounced as a glottal stop, and in quick conversation, this glottal stop sound is also lost for easy sounding, thus, the “want to” becomes /wana/ in pronunciation.