Old Prussians

The Old Prussians were a Baltic people who spoke Old Prussian and lived along the southeastern Baltic coast before German conquest and settlement transformed the region.

Old Prussian language: A now-extinct Baltic language spoken by the Old Prussians in the southeastern Baltic region. The language distinguishes the Old Prussians from the German settlers who later reshaped their homeland.
Prussian Crusade: A thirteenth-century campaign by the Teutonic Order to conquer and Christianize the Old Prussian lands. It began the military conquest that broke Old Prussian political independence.
West Baltic languages: A branch of Baltic languages that includes Old Prussian and several poorly attested extinct languages. This linguistic grouping clarifies where Old Prussian fits among related languages.
Baltic Prussia: The historical region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic, distinct from later Prussian states farther west. This regional distinction helps separate the Old Prussians’ homeland from later political meanings of Prussia.
Baltic peoples: An Indo-European ethnolinguistic group that includes Lithuanians, Latvians, and several extinct peoples. The Old Prussians belonged to this broader family of peoples.
Teutonic Order: A Catholic military order that established a crusader state on the southeastern Baltic coast. Its campaigns and rule brought the Old Prussian lands under German Christian authority.
Old Prussian catechisms: Sixteenth-century printed religious texts that preserve substantial records of the Old Prussian language. They are among the principal sources for reconstructing the language after conquest.
East Prussia: A German province on the southeastern Baltic coast that existed from the eighteenth century until 1945. Its German political identity followed the Old Prussian era and should not be conflated with it.
Curonians: An extinct Baltic people who inhabited parts of the eastern Baltic coast. They were neighboring coastal Balts with a history distinct from the Old Prussians.
Prussian uprisings: A series of Old Prussian rebellions against the Teutonic Order during the thirteenth century. These revolts show how Old Prussians resisted conquest before the Order consolidated control.

Linked from 3 pages