Music of Puerto Rico centers. After the island was taken over by Spain, the music and dance of Puerto Rico consisted of a combination of the harmonious musical styles that are borrowed from Spanish, African, and other European cultures, creating Puerto Rico's signature style of Latin dance. Salsa is a Spanish word that means sauce. It refers to the mixture of different rhythms composed of different Latin, African and Caribbean dances. Salsa is said to be first created around the 1960s and became popular to the non-Latino world drastically. The salsa dance is similar to the mambo dance. Salsa dancing is structured in six
Puerto Rican Spanish words in respect to geographic locations on the North American mainland (Alabama, Connecticut, Dakota, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah). The first African slaves were brought to the island in the 16th century. Although several African tribes have been recorded in Puerto Rico, it is the Kongo from Central Africa that is considered to have had the most influence on Puerto Rican Spanish. In the early colonial period many African slaves in Puerto Rico spoke Bozal Spanish. Words like "gandul" (pigeon pea), "fufú" (a spell), and "malanga" (a root vegetable), are commonly used and are of