Vol. 10 · Portmanteaus ·Early 20th century ·1933
Spanglish
Spanish English
- Meaning
- Code-switching or hybrid varieties of Spanish and English.
- Source words
- Spanish + English
- Coined by
- Salvador Tió
- Year
- 1933
Background
Tió, a Puerto Rican journalist, coined *Espanglish* in a 1933 newspaper column as a lament about English loanwords invading Puerto Rican Spanish. The English form flipped the order and dropped the *E-*.
Early 20th century
Industrialisation generated new things that needed new names, fast. Motoring, electricity, telecommunications, and urban pollution all produced portmanteaus within a generation of their arrival.
Two words, one coinage.
Browse every portmanteau on the shelf — or cross over to the loanwords atlas.