Salvador Tió y Montes de Oca (November 15, 1911 – September 17, 1989) was a Puerto Rican poet, writer, and promoter of Puerto Rican culture, best known for coining the term "

Spanglish Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...

Early life

Salvador Tió y Montes de Oca, better known as Salvador Tió was born on November 20, 1911 in

Mayagüez, Puerto Rico Mayagüez (, ) is a city and the eighth-largest municipality in Puerto Rico. It was founded as Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez, and is also known as ''La Sultana del Oeste'' (The Sultaness of the West), ''Ciudad de las Aguas Pura ...

to Salvador Tió y Malaret and his wife Teresa Montes de Oca y Branderes. He completed studies in law at

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

in New York and at the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loc ...

Spanglish

In the late 1940s, Salvador coined the term ''espanglish,'' which later evolved to its current form,

. This was his response to the many Spanish-speaking people who immediately relinquished their mother tongue in order to learn English upon immigrating to non-Hispanic countries.

Later Years

Salvador later moved to San Juan, where he died on September 17, 1989. He was buried at

Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery __NOTOC__ The Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery is a colonial-era cemetery located in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the final resting place of many of Puerto Rico's most prominent natives and residents. Construction began in 1863 under ...

in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

References

Burials at Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery Complutense University of Madrid alumni Columbia Law School alumni Puerto Rican poets Puerto Rican male writers 1989 deaths 1911 births 20th-century American poets People from Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 20th-century American male writers {{PuertoRico-bio-stub