✦ the space in between ✦

Nepantla

A Nahuatl word for the middle: the place between one world and the next.

✦ how to say it ✦

ne·PAN·tla

neh – PAHN – tlah

Three syllables. Lean on the middle one: ne-PAN-tla.
The “a” sounds are open, like the “a” in father.
In Nahuatl, “tl” is one sound. Start a “t” and let the air slip out past the sides of your tongue. If that’s new to you, a soft “tlah” is just fine.

Nepantla Corazones
neh-PAHN-tlah · koh-rah-SOH-nehs
Corazones means “hearts.” Together: in-between hearts.

✦ where the word comes from ✦

The language
Nepantla comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Nahua peoples of central Mexico, still spoken by well over a million people today. It means “in the middle” or “in between.”
The 1500s
As Spanish colonization reshaped their world, Nahua people used the word for what they were living through: no longer fully one way of life, not yet another. Their elders described the in-between as a narrow ridge, with a drop on either side.