The Balts or Baltic peoples (balti; baltai; Latgalian: bolti), defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between lower Vistula and upper Daugava and Dnieper rivers on the southeast shore of the Baltic Sea.
The number of lakes and swamps in this area isolated the Balts, and as a result of this isolation the Baltic languages retain a number of conservative or archaic features. Among the Baltic peoples are modern Lithuanians, Latvians and Latgalians -- all Eastern Balts -- as well as the Prussians, Yotvingians and Galindians, whose languages and cultures are now extinct.
The term Balts was created by German linguist Georg Nesselmann in 1845 to describe similar ethnic groups that live near Baltic Sea.
