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History of Nicaragua

Nicaragua is a nation in Central America. It is located about midway between Mexico and Colombia, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. Nicaragua ranges from the Caribbean Sea on the nation's east coast, and the Pacific Ocean bordering the west. Nicaragua also possesses a series of islands and cays located in the Caribbean Sea.

The etymology of Nicaragua is Nicānāhuac, which was the name the Nicaraos, a Nawat-speaking people, referred to their land located in present-day western Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica.[1][2][3][4] It means "here lies Anahuac" in Nahuatl and is a combination of the words "Nican" (here),[5] and "Ānāhuac", which in turn is a combination of the words "atl" (water) and "nahuac", a locative meaning "surrounded". Therefore the literal translation of Nicanahuac is "here surrounded by water".[6][7][8][9][10][11] It is a geographical endonym that refers to the large bodies of water surrounding the land the Nicaraos inhabited, the Pacific Ocean, lakes Nicaragua and Xolotlan, and the rivers and lagoons.[12][13][14] In addition it fits the theory that the etymology references bodies of water inside the country.

  1. ^ "Central American Nahua".
  2. ^ "The Kingdom of this world".
  3. ^ Peralta, De; M, Manuel (1901). "The Aboriginals of Costa Rica". Journal de la Société des Américanistes. 3 (2): 125–139. doi:10.3406/jsa.1901.3365.
  4. ^ Newson, Linda A.; Bonilla, Adolfo (2021). Las culturas indígenas y su medioambiente. pp. 21–54. ISBN 978-1-908857-87-3. JSTOR j.ctv1qr6sk7.7.
  5. ^ "Nahuatl Dictionary: Nican".
  6. ^ "Origin of the names of the Latin American countries". 8 February 2017.
  7. ^ "The curious story of the origin of the names of Latin American countries". 16 February 2022.
  8. ^ "Nicaragua". 11 July 2024.
  9. ^ "Nahuatl Dictionary".
  10. ^ "Etymology of Nicaragua".
  11. ^ "Nicaraguan place names" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-06-10. Retrieved 2024-10-22.
  12. ^ "Geographical Names as Cultural Heritage" (PDF).
  13. ^ "February 2007" (PDF).
  14. ^ "From Brazil to Bolivia and Costa Rica: Explanations about Latin American country names".

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