Udmurts

The name Udmurt comes from *odo-mort 'meadow people,' where the first part represents the Permic root *od(o)^[9] meaning 'meadow, glade, turf, greenery'. The second part, murt, means 'person' (cf. Komi mort, Mari mari, Mordvin mirď-), probably an early borrowing from an Iranian language (such as Scythian): *mertä or *martiya meaning 'person, man' (cf. Persian mard). This, in turn, is thought to have been borrowed from the Indo-Aryan term *maryá- 'man', literally 'mortal, one who is bound to die' (< PIE *mer- 'to die'), compare Old Indic márya 'young warrior' and Old Indic marut 'chariot warrior', both connected specifically with horses and chariots.^[10] This is supported by a document dated 1557, in which the Udmurts are referred to as lugovye lyudi 'meadow people', alongside the traditional Russian name otyaki.^[11]

On the other hand, in the Russian tradition, the name 'meadow people' refers to the inhabitants of the left bank of a river in general. Most relevant in this regard is the recent theory proposed by V. V. Napolskikh and S. K. Belykh, who suppose that the ethnonym was borrowed from Proto-Iranian entirely: *anta-marta meaning 'resident of outskirts, border zone' (cf. Antes) → Proto-Permic *odə-mort → Udmurt udmurt.^[12]

Most Udmurt people live in Udmurtia. Small groups live in the neighboring areas of Kirov Oblast and Perm Krai, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, and Mari El.^{[citation needed]}

The Udmurt population is shrinking; the Russian Census reported 552,299 in 2010, down from the 2002 Russian census figure of 637,000, in turn down from 746,562 in 1989.^{[citation needed]}The 2021 census counted fewer Udmurts than had the 1926 census.

The Udmurt language belongs to the Uralic family.

The Udmurts have a national epic called Dorvyzhy. Their national musical instruments include the krez zither (similar to the Russian gusli) and a pipe-like wind instrument called the chipchirghan.^[13]

A chapter in the French Description de toutes les nations de l'empire de Russie from 1776 is devoted to the description of the Wotyak people.^[8]James George Frazer also mentions a rite performed by the people in his book The Golden Bough.^[14]

Many Udmurt people have red hair,^[15][16] and a festival to celebrate the red-haired people has been held annually in Izhevsk since 2004.^[17]

The Udmurts used to be semi-nomadic forest dwellers that lived in riverside communities. However, most Udmurts now live in towns. Although the clan-based social structure of the Udmurts no longer exists, its traces are still strong and it continues to shape modern Udmurt culture.^[18]

According to the data gathered by Kristiina Tambets and others (2018), about 70% of Udmurt men carry the haplogroup N. Most of them belong to the subclade N1c and 16.8% of them belong the subclade N1b-P43. The second most common Y-DNA haplogroup among Udmurts is R1a (19%).^[20]

The most common maternal haplogroup for Udmurts is U (23.5%). Most Udmurts who have it belong to its subclades U2 (10.4%) and U5 (9.3%). Nearly as common is H (22.5%). Other mtDNA haplogroups among Udmurts include T (16.5%), D (11%) and Z (6%).^[20]

When it comes to the autosomal ancestry of Udmurts, around 30% of it is Nganasan-like.^[20][21] This Siberian component is typical for Uralic-speaking peoples.^[20] The rest can be modelled to be Srubnaya-like.^[21]

• Besermyan (considered a subgroup of the Udmurts)

• Kralina, Nadezhda [ru]. "Сто сказок удмуртского народа" [A hundred fairy tales from the Udmurt people]. Ижевск: Удмуртское книжное издательство, 1961.
• Levin, Isidor [de]. "III. Forschungsberichte: Die Volkserzählungen der Wotjaken (Udmurten) (Mit Beiträgen von Walter Anderson)". In: Fabula 5, no. Jahresband (1962): 101-155. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1962.5.1.101
• Shushakova, Galina. "The Idea of Earthly and Unearthly worlds in the Udmurt fairy-tales". In: Folk Belief Today. Edited by Mare Kõiva and Kai Vassiljeva. Tartu: Estonian Academy of Sciences; Institute of Estonian Language; Estonian Museum of Literature, 1995. pp. 442-446. ISBN 9985-851-11-0.

• Udmurtology—(in Russian)
• Udmurt language Wiki How