Cuzcatlan in the context of "Toltec"

El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. El Salvador's population in 2024 was estimated to be 6 million.

Among the Mesoamerican nations that historically controlled the region are the Maya and then the Cuzcatlecs. Archaeological monuments also suggest an early Olmec presence around the first millennium BC. In the beginning of the 16th century, the Spanish Empire conquered the Central American territory, incorporating it into the Viceroyalty of New Spain ruled from Mexico City. However, the Viceroyalty of New Spain had little to no influence in the daily affairs of the isthmus, which was colonized in 1524. In 1609, the area was declared the Captaincy General of Guatemala by the Spanish, which included the territory that would become El Salvador until its independence from Spain in 1821. It was forcibly incorporated into the First Mexican Empire, then seceded, joining the Federal Republic of Central America in 1823. When the federation dissolved in 1841, El Salvador became a sovereign state. It then formed a short-lived union with Honduras and Nicaragua, called the Greater Republic of Central America, which lasted from 1896 to 1898.

Nawat, also known as Náhuat and academically referred to as Pipil, is a Nahuan language native to Central America. It is the southernmost extant member of the Uto-Aztecan family. Before Spanish colonization it was spoken in several parts of present-day Central America, most notably El Salvador and Nicaragua, but now is mostly confined to western El Salvador. Nahuat was still spoken in several towns in Pacific Guatemala until at least the late 1700s. It has been on the verge of extinction in El Salvador, and has already gone extinct elsewhere in Central America. In 2012, a large number of new Nawat speakers started to appear. The language is undergoing a revitalization process.

In El Salvador, Nawat was the language of several groups: Nonualcos, Cuscatlecos, Izalcos and is known to be the Nahua variety of migrating Toltec. The name Pipil for this language is mostly used by the international scholarly community to differentiate it more clearly from Nahuatl. In Nicaragua it was spoken by the Nicarao people who split from the Náhuat around 1200 when they migrated south. Nawat became the lingua franca there during the 16th century. A hybrid form of Nahuat-Spanish was spoken by many Nicaraguans up until the 19th century. The Nawat language was also spoken in Chiapas by Toltec settlers who inhabited the region for hundreds of years before migrating further into Central America.

The Pipil or Náhuat are an Indigenous group of Mesoamerican people inhabiting the western and central areas of present-day El Salvador. They are a subgroup of the larger Nahua ethnic group, and are closely related to the Nicarao people of Nicaragua. They speak the Nawat language, which is a closely related but distinct language from the Nahuatl of Central Mexico. There are very few speakers of Nawat left, but there are efforts being made to revitalize it.

At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Pipil were largely concentrated in Cuzcatlan, covering most of western El Salvador. Pipil populations were also present in Guatemala, and likely in various parts of Honduras. The Nawat language has already gone extinct in Guatemala and Honduras, but there is a small population of acculturated Nahuas in the Olancho Department of eastern Honduras.