Mangue language

Mangue, also known as Chorotega,^[1] is an extinct Oto-Manguean language ancestral to Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica. Estimates of the ethnic population vary widely, from around 10,000 in 1981,^[2] to 210,000 according to Chorotega activists.^[3] Chorotega-speaking peoples included the Mangue and Monimbo. The dialects were known as: Mangue proper in western Nicaragua, which was further subdivided into Dirian and Nagrandan; Choluteca in the region of Honduras' Bay of Fonseca; and Orotiña in Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula.^[4]

The Oto-Manguean languages are spoken mainly in Mexico and it is thought that the Mangue people moved south from Mexico together with the speakers of Subtiaba and Chiapanec well before the arrival of the Spaniards in the Americas.^[5] The timing of this migration is estimated to be between 800 and 1350 AD.^[6]

Some sources list "Choluteca" as an alternative name of the people and their language, and this has caused some (for example Terrence Kaufman 2001) to speculate that they were the original inhabitants of the city of Cholula, who were displaced with the arrival of Nahua people in central Mexico. The etymology for the nomenclature "Chorotega" in this case would come from the Nahuatl language where "Cholōltēcah" means "inhabitants of Cholula", or "people who have fled". The region of southernmost Honduras known as Choluteca, along with Choluteca City, derive their names from this Nahuatl word. Choluteca was originally inhabited by Chorotega groups. Daniel Garrison Brinton argued that the name chorotega was a Nahuatl exonym meaning "people who fled" given after a defeat by Nahuan forces that split the Chorotega-Mangue people into two groups. He argued that the better nomenclature was Mangue, derived from the group’s endonym mankeme meaning "lords".^[1]

In Guaitil, Costa Rica, the Mangue have been absorbed into the Costa Rican culture, losing their language, but pottery techniques and styles have been preserved.^[7][8]