Finnish: Jumala or Estonian: Jumal or Mari: Jumo [1] means "god" in Finnic languages and Volga-Finnic languages, both the Christian 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-speaking peoples. Jumala as a "god of the sky" is associated with the related Estonian Jumal, Mari Jumo, Udmurt Inmar, Komi Jen, Nenets Num, and Bjarmian Jomali and is thought to stem from an ancient Uralic "god of the sky" tradition.[2][3]
The name was borrowed from Baltic languages (cf. Jumis — Latvian god of fertility, one of the Divine twins). This name replaced the aboriginal Finno-Ugric word for "heaven" (*ilme), which is preserved in the Permian languages and Finnic Ilmarinen.
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In Estonia, 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, 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:
Later on, the sky itself was called taivas (sky or heaven) and the sky-god Ukko. 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 and the Finnish word for "god".