Rubén Cobos

Rubén Cobos (November 11, 1911 — November 22, 2010) was an American folklorist, linguist, professor, journalist, and musician whose work focused on the language and culture of the Southwestern United States. Cobos was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila in 1911. Cobos wrote the first dictionary of New Mexican Spanish, ''A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish''. Cobos was multilingual and spoke Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese and German.

Cobos was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila in 1911 and moved to San Antonio, Texas with his family in 1925 after the death of his father. In 1927 the family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where Cobos starting taking classes at the Menaul School. Cobos realized the Spanish spoken in New Mexico was distinct from Mexico and Texas, and that there was a difference in dialects between northern and southern New Mexico. Cobos attended the University of New Mexico and taught Spanish and folklore there from 1944 until 1977. Cobos released two editions of ''A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish'' in 1983 and 2003. He died in 2010 at his home in Albuquerque. Provided by Wikipedia