Besermyan
Template:Short description Template:Infobox ethnic group The Besermyan, Biserman, Besermans, or Besermens,Template:Efn are a numerically small Permian people in Russia.<ref name=":3" />
The 1897 Russian census listed 10,800 Besermans. There were 10,000 Besermans in 1926, but the 2002 Russian census found only 3,122 of them.<ref>demoskop.ru: Alphabetical list of peoples of the Russian Empire Template:Webarchive</ref>
The Besermyan live in the districts of Yukamenskoye, Glazov, Balezino, and Yar in the northwest of Udmurtia. There are ten villages of pure Besermyan ethnicity in Russia, and 41 villages with a partial Besermyan population.
History
The Besermyan are of Turkic origin,<ref name=":02">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and are probably the result of a group of Tatars who were assimilated by the Udmurts.<ref name=":22">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the 13th century, during his travel to Mongolia, papal envoy Plano Carpini claimed that the Besermyan were subjects of the Mongols. Russian chronicles sometimes made mention of the Besermyan but it's unclear whether the term was meant to denote the modern group as it was a common derivation of the term "musulman" (Muslim).<ref name=":02" /> It is likely that the term had broader usage before it became an ethnonym.<ref name=":02" />
Culture
The language of the Besermyan is a dialect of the Udmurt language with Tatar influences.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref> Although they speak a dialect of Udmurt, the Besermyan consider themselves a distinct people.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>
The Besermyan used to historically practice their own indigenous religion.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref> According to scholar Shirin Akiner, most current Besermyan practice Sunni Islam.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> Some Besermyan also practice Christianity.<ref name=":1" /> The Russians began converting the Besermyan to Christianity around the middle of the 18th century.<ref name=":3" />
Genetics
In a mtDNA research which was done on Besermyans there were 41 tested persons from the village of Yozhovo in Yukamenskovo raion of Udmurtia. The proportion of Eastern Eurasian haplogroups, primarily of haplogroup C, turned out to be significantly higher than that of the Udmurts. According to this indicator, the Besermyans genetically stand out against the background of the Volga-Ural region and are closer to the Turkic-speaking peoples of Southern Siberia.<ref>Грошева А. Н., Шнейдер Ю. В., Морозова И. Ю., Жукова О. В., Рычков С. Ю. Генетическое разнообразие бесермян по данным о полиморфизме митохондриальной ДНК // Генетика. 2013. № 11. С. 1337—1344.</ref>
A study was conducted of the Y-chromosome haplogroups of 53 Besermyans from the villages of Yukamenskoye and Yozhevo, as well as the village of Shamardan, Yukamensky district of Udmurtia. It turned out that more than half of the samples belong to haplogroup N, which may indicate the predominance of the Finno-Ugric component in the formation of the Besermyans along their male line.<ref>Трофимова Н. В., Литвинов С. С., Хусаинова Р. И. и др. Генетическая характеристика популяций Волго-Уральского региона по данным об изменчивости Y-хромосомы // Генетика. 2015. Т. 51. № 1. С. 120—127.</ref>
The data from lexicostatistics also did not reveal a noticeable Bulgar (Old Chuvash) substrate in the Besermyan dialect. Only Tatar adstrate, associated with the Chepetsk Tatars, can be traced.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20180221100145/http://beserman.ru/publications/Idrisov_Thesis_2013.pdf ГЕНЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКА ПОПУЛЯЦИЙ ВОЛГО-УРАЛЬСКОГО РЕГИОНА ПО ДАННЫМ ОБ ИЗМЕНЧИВОСТИ Y-ХРОМОСОМЫ</ref>
According to a 2019 study, the Besermyan's autosomal genetic admixture can be modeled as mostly Srubnaya-like and about 25 percent Nganasan-like.<ref name=":4" />