A number of years ago Joss Whedon wrote a comic book series that was set in the future of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe where a future half Slayer, Melaka Fray, her twin brother got the Slayer knowledge and she got the Slayer powers...
Anyway, in that series, called Fray, Joss has people speaking English differently, attempting to predict the changes in the English language that might occur over the next 100 or so years. Sentences, he theorised, would be much shorter and words much more descriptive. So, for example, vampires are no longer called vampires, that takes too long to say. Instead they are called by a description of what they do: lurk, so they are called Lurks.
In the Buffy Season 8 comics she visits Fray in the future and is being filled in on the new meanings of words, her conclusion is that she wished she studied in English class better, to preserve the English language for future generations.
Anyway, all that to say Joss Whedon's context of writing is California. Here, in California, they don't say 'I am going to', nor do they say the shorter 'I'm going to' or even the shorter but still acceptable 'I'm gonna'. Instead they say "I'mma".
For example:
Micah: "I'mma slap you." (His favourite phrase)
Meaning: "I am going to slap you."
Maybe Joss Whedon was on to something, at least in the Californian context.
It's funny to compare it where German, where new words are made all the time too, but instead of making them shorter they just throw them together and say a longer word that used to be two individual words!
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