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Albion
04-28-2011, 07:26 PM
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Bjarmaland%2CCarta_Marina.jpg/300px-Bjarmaland%2CCarta_Marina.jpg

Bjarmaland (also spelled Bjarmland and Bjarmia) was a territory mentioned in Norse sagas up to the Viking Age and - beyond - in geographical accounts until the 16th century. The term is usually seen to have referred to the southern shores of the White Sea and the basin of the Northern Dvina River (Vienanjoki in Finnish) and - presumably - some of the surrounding areas. Today, these territories comprise a part of the Arkhangelsk Oblast of Russia.
In the account of the Viking adventurer Ottar who visited Bjarmaland in the end of the 9th century AD, the term "Beorm" is used for the people of Bjarmaland. According to the account, "Beormas" spoke a language related to that of the Sami people, and lived in an area of the White Sea region.

Accordingly, many historians assume the terms beorm and bjarm to derive from the Uralic word perm, which refers to "travelling merchants" and represents the Old Permic culture.[2] However, some linguists consider this theory to be speculative.[3]
The recent research on the Uralic substrate in northern Russian dialects suggests that several other Uralic groups besides the Permians lived in Bjarmaland, assumed to have included the Viena Karelians, Sami and Kvens.

Based on medieval sources, Bjarmaland's closest neighbor in the west was Kvenland. According to some medieval accounts and maps, Kvenland included also the Kola Peninsula north from Bjarmaland, as stated e.g. in the late 1150s' AD Leiðarvísir og borgarskipan in which the Icelandic Abbot Níkulás Bergsson writes that north from Värmland there are "two Kvenlands (Kvenlönd), which extend to north of Bjarmia (Bjarmalandi)".

Bjarmian trade reached south-east to Bulgar by the Volga River where the Bjarmians also interacted with Scandinavians and Fennoscandians, who adventured southbound from the Baltic Sea area.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Ottars_reise.jpg/707px-Ottars_reise.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Bajarmaland.jpg/800px-Bajarmaland.jpg


Source... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarmaland)

Its a shame the Bjarmians didn't survive. I suppose they were probably related to the Nenets and Komi.

The Ripper
04-28-2011, 07:33 PM
Its a shame the Bjarmians didn't survive. I suppose they were probably related to the Nenets and Komi.

I think it is more likely that the Bjarmians were some form of Karelian / Eastern Baltic Finnish tribe. The Kvens often had dealings with Karelians, but I've never heard of them interacting with Komi or Nenets.

Albion
04-28-2011, 07:44 PM
I think it is more likely that the Bjarmians were some form of Karelian / Eastern Baltic Finnish tribe. The Kvens often had dealings with Karelians, but I've never heard of them interacting with Komi or Nenets.

Yeah, probably. Its interesting to hear how well linked to the rest of the world through trading they were being right up near the White Sea,

Motörhead Remember Me
05-04-2011, 05:22 AM
Source... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarmaland)

Its a shame the Bjarmians didn't survive. I suppose they were probably related to the Nenets and Komi.

Nenets? Not likely. Komi? Not very likely either. Karelians more likely.

Jaska
05-06-2011, 01:02 AM
Nenets? Not likely. Komi? Not very likely either. Karelians more likely.
Yes, there are at least Karelian place-names nearby. And the only Bjarmian name was their god Jomali, related to the Finnic word jumala 'god'.

Osweo
05-06-2011, 01:24 AM
My money is on them being the 'Zavolotskie Chud' of later Russian chronicles. Basically, the Veps' close cousins, who were a linguistic influence on the ancestors of the Komi once upon a time. Slavonicised and become the distinct Russian subethnos of the Pomory, I suppose.

AinoMaria
04-13-2013, 07:55 PM
Yes, there are at least Karelian place-names nearby. And the only Bjarmian name was their god Jomali, related to the Finnic word jumala 'god'.

Komi people have epic poem named Bjarmland