52 LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN NICARAGUA. Book L 
The derivation of the two first syllables is uncertain. From 
several circumstances, it appears that the village of Jino- 
tepet is just on the old boundary line between the territo- 
ries of a fragment of the Aztec race settled in Nicaragua, 
and of another tribe of Indians called the Dirians or Cho- 
rotegans. According to the statements of Oviedo and some 
other early historians, there were five different languages 
spoken in Nicaragua at the time of the first arrival of the 
Spaniards. One of those languages was that of the Chon- 
tales, or inhabitants of the mountainous regions to the north- 
east of the lake of Nicaragua. Of that language and race 
I shall speak in another chapter, when I relate my excur- 
sion to the province of Chontales and to the plateau of 
Upper Mosquitia. Amongst the four remaining Indian 
languages of the country, the Aztec is the most important. 
The islands of the lake of Nicaragua and the isthmus of 
Bivas seem to be the most southern country inhabited by 
the Aztec race, and it is a fragment of the nation, separated 
from the main stock, which has occupied this small region 
placed between other Indian tribes. Mr. Squier was the 
first to elucidate the fact, that the language of the present 
inhabitants of the island of Ometepe is the Aztec. The 
name of that island itself is a compound of the two Aztec 
words ome — which means two — and tepetl, the whole cor- 
responding to the nature of the island, which is composed 
of two volcanic peaks with a low neck of land between them. 
The region inhabited by this fragment of the Aztec nation, 
or Nahuatlac race — if this latter designation should appear 
preferable — is Nicaragua Proper, the district to which the 
name now given to the whole country was exclusively 
applied at the time of the discovery ; and even now the 
residents of Granada or other parts of the republic, when 
they visit Eivas, San Jorge, or other places of that district, 
