Mexican X-plainer: Tacos, Not Tlahcos
A recent debate among friends on Twitter concerning what does and does not constitute a real tortilla got me thinking about people’s misguided understanding of the word “taco,” which I have seen some folx erroneously derive from the Nahuatl word “tlahco” or “tlacōtl.”
Sorry, but no. “Tlahco” means “center,” “middle,” or “half.” Its meaning is born out in many compounds: tlahcocuetlaxtli (sash or “belt for one’s middle”), tlahcoitta (moderate or “find in the middle”), tlahcotequi (“cut in halves”), tlahcoyohuan (midnight or “middle of the night”), tlahcomiztli ( cacomistle or “half puma”), etc.
Tlahco was often employed to mean “person/thing in the middle.” Its main use was to describe the “middle child,” as with the goddess “Tlahco,” third of four aspects of Tlazōlteōtl. Her name is often translated “third daughter.” Tlahcoēhua is a verb that literally means “s/he rises up in the middle,” but which was used to mean “s/he is the second or third child in the family.”
Then we have “tlacōtl” and its inalienable possessed form “-tlacōyo,” which mean “stem,” “stalk” or simply “stick.” There is no evidence that either “tlacōtl” or “tlahco” was ever used to describe rolled-up tortillas with food inside. Not a single attestation in the written record. These are simply fanciful folk etymologies.
