Sudovia protested against using a term imposed on the region by the Russian Empire, especially since the city of Suwałki is in Poland and the current region has no connection with it. They have also argued that the term Suvalkija is a fairly recent and artificial political development, popularized by Soviet historians, and that the more archaic Sudovia more correctly reflects the region's historical roots. The suffix -ija is not generally used in the Lithuanian language to derive placenames from city names (the only exception is Vilnija, used to describe the Vilnius Region). An official petition from the Council for Protection of the Suvalkija Regional Ethnic Culture to the Commission of the Lithuanian Language, requesting an official name change from Suvalkija to Sudovia, was rejected in 2005. The Commission based the decision on its finding that Suvalkija prevails in both academic literature and everyday life. Sub-regions Suvalkija is roughly subdivided into two areas, inhabited by Zanavykai (singular: Zanavykas) and by Kapsai (singular: Kapsas). Zanavykai occupy northern Suvalkija in the area approximately bounded by the Neman, Šešupė, and Višakis Rivers. Before 1795 that part of Suvalkija lay within the Eldership of Samogitia, while the rest was within the Trakai Voivodeship. Šakiai is considered to be the capital of this subregion, sometimes called Zanavykija. Another important center is in Veliuona. The name Zanavykai is derived from the Nova River, a tributary of the Šešupė River. People who lived beyond the river (Polish: ) became known as Zanavykai. The prefix za- and the suffix -yk are Slavic. To correct this, linguists proposed naming the group or , terms which also mean "beyond the Nova river" but follow Lithuanian language precedents. However, this proposal did not gain popular support and the term Zanavykai is still widely used. Kapsai inhabit southern Suvalkija, with major centers in Marijampolė and Vilkaviškis. The term is not used by local inhabitants to identify themselves, but is rather a term coined by linguists; thus it did not gain much popularity in the public. When linguists classified Lithuanian language dialects, they identified two major sub-dialects in Suvalkija: one in the territory inhabited by Zanavykai and another in the south. Southerners pronounced the word (how) as . This distinct characteristic earned them the name Kapsai, but they could also be called as they pronounced word (yes) as . A revised classification of the dialects, proposed in 1965 by linguists Zigmas Zinkevičius and