Note 20 — INTRODUCTION.
Reading edition
The older writers have left scant information about these idioms. Oviedo preserved thirty or forty Nahuatl words, most of which have been analyzed by Buschman; and Benzoni, in a brief passage, notes the identity of the Nicaraguan and Mexican. "Chiamano li Signori Tutruane, il pane tascal, and le galline totoli, and occomaia tanto vuol dire como aspetta un poco e al infirmita mococoua and al ballare mitote." La Historia del Mondo Nuovo, p. 103. It is said that a Doctrina was printed in the Mangue; but the only work on that tongue I know of is the Apuntamientos de la Lengua Mangue, by Don Juan Eligio de la Rocha (MS. Masaya, 1842) a fragment of which is in my possession.
Dr. S. Habel, who visited Nicaragua in 1865, in spite of the greatest efforts, was unable to find a single person speaking Nahuatl; they told him it was all forgotten.—Archæological and Ethnological Investigations in Central and South America, p. 24 (Washington, 1878).