The first Spanish and English explorers appear to have greatly overestimated the size of the Cherokee, placing them as far north as Virginia. However, many historians now believe that there was a large, mixed race/ mixed language confederacy in the region, called the Coosa. The Spanish also gave them the nicknames Chalaques and Uchis during the 16th century and the English turned Chalaques into Cherokees. The Cherokees we know today were among these people, but lived much further south and both the Cherokee language (of Iroquoian origin) and the Yuchi language (Muskogean) have been heavily modified by Siouan influence and carry many Siouan borrow words. This nation would have existed throughout parts of the states of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Georgia, with cores of different culture groups organized at different extremes of the territory and, probably, speaking Yuchi as a common tongue.