Nicarao people in the context of "Pipils"

Lake Managua (Spanish: Lago de Managua, [maˈnaɣwa]), also known as Lake Xolotlán (Lago Xolotlán), is a freshwater lake in Nicaragua. At 1,042 km², it is approximately 65 kilometres (40 mi) long and 25 kilometres (16 mi) wide. Similarly to the name of Lake Nicaragua, its other name comes from the Nahuatl language, possibly from the Spanish Tlaxcaltec and Mexica allies but most likely from the Nicarao tribes that had already settled in the region. The city of Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, lies on its southwestern shore.

Managua (Spanish pronunciation: [maˈna.ɣwa]) is a department in Nicaragua. It covers an area of 3,465 km and has a population of 1,559,774 (2021 estimate), making it the country's most populated department. The capital is the city of Managua, which is also the capital of Nicaragua. The department has two coastlines, on the Pacific Ocean and on Lake Managua, but does not border Lake Nicaragua. The Nahua chiefdom of Tekwantepek was located in the Managua department. According to Spanish conquistador and historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Tekwantepek was one of the last chiefdoms in present-day Nicaragua to fall to the conquistadors and their central-Mexican allies. The chiefdom's name is a combination of the Nawat words tēkwani (jaguar), and tepek (hill), therefore the translation of Tekwantepek is "hill of jaguars" or "jaguar hill". The municipality of Ticuantepe located in the department is likely named after this chiefdom. The Indigenous inhabitants of Managua are the Chorotegas and Nahuas.

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.