Yotvingian

The Yotvingians, also known as Jotvingians or Sudovians, were a Western Baltic tribe that inhabited parts of the eastern Baltic region from late antiquity into the Middle Ages. They are one of the Baltic peoples who spoke an extinct language and left a distinct historical footprint in medieval sources.

Their core homeland, called Sudovia, lay along the Neman River and its tributaries, in areas that are now northeastern Poland (notably the Suwałki region) and southern Lithuania, with smaller groups near what is today Belarus.

They spoke Yotvingian, an extinct Western Baltic language related to Old Prussian and Lithuanian. Evidence for the language is fragmentary, consisting mainly of toponyms, loanwords in neighboring languages, and a few phrases recorded in chroniclers.

From the 13th century onward, the Yotvingians faced the expansion of Germanic crusading powers during the Northern Crusades. They were gradually conquered and assimilated by neighboring Lithuanians and Poles, and by the 16th century the language and distinct identity had largely disappeared.

Today, the Yotvingians are studied primarily as part of Baltic ethnogenesis. The region associated with them, Sudovia, remains a historical reference in Lithuania, and toponyms and archaeological finds continue to document their former presence.