Yotvingians
/jɒtˈvɪndʒiənz/noun
A Baltic people who lived in what is now parts of northeastern Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus.
Did you know?The name is preserved in medieval Latin and Slavic sources, but the people themselves were gradually absorbed, displaced, or destroyed during the crusading expansion into the Baltic frontier.
Etymological Timeline
Medieval Latin
Latin
Yotvingi
“The name used in Latin sources for a Baltic people in the northeastern frontier zone.”
Old East Slavic
Slavic
Jatvjagi
“A neighboring Slavic form referring to the same people.”
Proto-Baltic
Baltic
*Jātving-
“Reconstructed ethnonym, probably the ancestral form behind the historical names.”
Modern English
English
Yotvingians
“The English historical term for the Baltic tribe known from medieval sources.”
Explore more surprising origins