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italics=no (), italics=no () or italics=no (Mari language) A History of Pagan Europe, P. 181 means in the Finnic languages and those of the Volga Finns (Mari language, Erzya language and ), both the God and any other deity of any religion. The word is thought to have been the name of a sky god of the ancient Finnic languages-speaking peoples. Jumala as a god of the sky is associated with the related Estonians Jumal, Mari Jumo and is thought to stem from an ancient tradition of the Finno-Ugric peoples.
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 dyumān , accepted in some sources but disputed in others due to the inexact meaning.Vainik, Ene. (2014). "Jumala jälgi ajamas" Tracing. Mäetagused 58: 1-34. 10.7592/MT2014.58.vainik. A different possible origin is Baltic languages (cf. Jumis – Latvian god of the evergreen Otherworld, and his sister/wife Jumala).
This name replaced the original Finno-Ugric word for (), which is preserved in the Sami languages and Permic languages but whose meaning was shifted to in Finnic. The older sense remains in the Finnish divine name Ilmarinen.
No certain equivalents are found in the Ugric languages, though a minority view proposes a connection with words meaning 'good', such as Hungarian jó, Northern Mansi ёмас . The source of these words has been reconstructed as *jomV rather than *juma.
In Finland, Jumala was the name of two of the Finns' sky gods, or one of two names for the sky god (cf. Ilmarinen).
According to John Martin Crawford in the preface to his translation of the Kalevala:
The Finnish deities, like the ancient gods of Italy, Greece, Egypt, Vedic period India or any ancient cosmogony, 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. The Kalevala Index
Later on, the sky itself was called taivas and the sky-god Ukko, 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.
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