(), () or ( Mari)A History of Pagan Europe, P. 181
means in the

Finnic languages The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia. Traditionally, ...

and those of the

Volga Finns The Volga Finns are a historical group of peoples living in the vicinity of the Volga, who speak Uralic languages. Their modern representatives are the Mari people, the Erzya and the Moksha (commonly grouped together as Mordvins) as well as ...

( Mari, Erzya and

Moksha language Moksha (, ) is a Mordvinic languages, Mordvinic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic family, spoken by Mokshas, with around 130,000 native speakers in 2010. Moksha is the majority language in the western part of Mordovia. Its closest relativ ...

s), both the Christian God and any other

deity A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...

of any religion. The word is thought to have been the name of a sky god of the ancient Finnic-speaking peoples. Jumala as a god of the sky is associated with the related

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

, Mari and is thought to stem from an ancient tradition of the

Finno-Ugric peoples Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th century ...

Etymology

The Finnic and Mari terms for are usually considered to derive from a common Finno-Permic root . Related terms have been proposed to be found also in the

Mordvinic languages The Mordvinic languages, also known as the Mordvin, Mordovian or Mordvinian languages (, ''mordovskiye yazyki''), are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language, both spoken in Mordovia ...

: ёндол , interpretable as an old compound meaning (cf. тол ). A single 17th-century source on Mordvinic moreover mentions ''Jumishipas'' as the name of a pre-Christian deity. The exact meaning of this however remains unclear (cf. ши , пас ). There are different theories concerning the earlier origin of the word. An Indo-Iranian origin for the name has been proposed, comparing e.g. Sanskrit , accepted in some sources but disputed in others due to the inexact meaning. A different possible origin is

Baltic languages The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively or as a second language by a population of about 6.5–7.0 million people

(cf. ''Jumis'' – Latvian god of the evergreen Otherworld, and his sister/wife Jumala). This name replaced the original Finno-Ugric word for ( *''ilma''), which is preserved in the

Sámi Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

and

Permic languages The Permic or Permian languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. They are spoken in several regions to the west of the Ural Mountains within the Russian Federation. The total number of speakers is around 950,000, of which around 550,0 ...

but whose meaning was shifted to in Finnic. The older sense remains in the Finnish divine name ''

Ilmarinen Ilmarinen () is a god and archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology. He is immortal and capable of creating practically anything. In addition, he is described as working the known metals of the time, including brass, copper, iron, gold, and sil ...

''. No certain equivalents are found in the

Ugric languages The Ugric or Ugrian languages ( or ) are a branch of the Uralic language family. Ugric includes three subgroups: Hungarian, Khanty, and Mansi. The latter two are traditionally considered to be single languages, though they are sometimes c ...

, though a minority view proposes a connection with words meaning 'good', such as Hungarian , Northern Mansi . The source of these words has been reconstructed as rather than .

Jumal

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

, Jumal was the name of the god of the sky. He was believed to make the earth fertile through the rains of the summer's thunderstorms. Among the south Estonians, he was represented by a wooden statue in their homes. In

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, Jumala was the name of two of the

Finns Finns or Finnish people (, ) are a Baltic Finns, Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these cou ...

' sky gods, or one of two names for the sky god (cf.

). According to John Martin Crawford in the preface to his translation of the

Kalevala The ''Kalevala'' () is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling a story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory ...

The Finnish deities, like the ancient gods of
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
,
Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
,
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
,
Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
or any ancient
cosmogony Cosmogony is any model concerning the origin of the cosmos or the universe. Overview Scientific theories In astronomy, cosmogony is the study of the origin of particular astrophysical objects or systems, and is most commonly used in ref ...
, are generally represented in pairs, and all the gods are probably wedded. They have their individual abodes and are surrounded by their respective families. ... The heavens themselves were thought divine. Then a personal deity of the heavens, coupled with the name of his abode, was the next conception; finally this sky-god was chosen to represent the supreme Ruler. To the sky, the sky-god, and the supreme God, the term Jumala (thunder-home) was given.

Later on, the sky itself was called and the sky-god Ukko Ylijumala, literally ''Grandfather'' or ''Old Man Overgod''. However, when Christianity came to dominate Finnish religious life in the Middle Ages and the old gods were ousted or consolidated away from the pantheon, ''Jumala'' became the Finnish name for the Christian God.

Jómali

Two

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

texts mention a god called , worshipped in

Bjarmaland Bjarmaland (also spelled ''Bjarmland'' and ''Bjarmia'') was a territory mentioned in sagas from the Viking Age and in geographical accounts until the 16th century. The term is usually understood to have referred to the southern shores of the Whit ...

: '' Óláfs saga helga'' chapter 133 and '' Bósa saga'' chapters 8-10. The attestation in is probably borrowed from the earlier . The name of this god is generally assumed to be a loanword from a Finnic language.Mervi Koskela Vasaru, ' ww.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:606905/FULLTEXT01.pdf Bjarmaland and Interaction in the North of Europe from the Viking Age until the Early Middle Ages, Journal of Northern Studies, 6.2 (2012), 37–58 (p. 42).

References

Sources

*''

Nationalencyklopedin (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia with several hundred thousand articles. It is available both online and via a printed version. History The project was ...

'' {{Kalevala Finnish gods Sky and weather gods Estonian gods Finnish words and phrases