The Sabir people inhabited the Caspian depression prior to the arrival of the Avars. Previously they were a shepherd nation known as the Subareans who inhabited the land known by the Babylonians and Assyrians as Subartu situated in the Transcaucasian-Northern Mesopotamian-Western Iranian region. It is from the name of this region that the term Sephardi derives.

Some Byzantine mention Sabartoi asphaloi as a name by which the Magyars used to call themselves. Similarly it supposed that Sumerians of Southern Mesopotamia originally came from the Transcaucasian-North East Mesopotamian-Western Iranian region which they referred to as Subir-Ki, the original lands of the Semites.

They are thought to have spoken agglutinative languages related to Hurrian and have thus been associated with the Sabeans (not to be confused with Sabaeans).