Tomato, Avocado, Chili: Words from Nahuatl — Epoche A1
20th May Rosa took me to the Mercado de Coyoacán today. A tostada with green salsa: 35 pesos. Then Rosa played a game. "Say tomate . Say aguacate . Say chile ." Easy — tomato, avocado, chili. "Those words are not Spanish," she said. "They are Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Spanish took them, and then English took them from Spanish." Even Coyoacán is Nahuatl. It means "place of coyotes". More than a million people in Mexico still speak Nahuatl today. And I spoke a little of it all my life — in the kitchen, without knowing.