Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the-stanin Afghanistan? I don’t know about the former, but we can thank the Proto-Indo-Europeans for the latter. These folks spoke theProto-Indo-European language(PIE), a prehistoric Eurasian language that linguists have reconstructed.
The PIE root,st?-, or “stand,” found its way into many words in the language’s various descendants. The Russian-stanmeans “settlement,” and other Slavic languages use it to mean “apartment” or “state.” In English, the root was borrowed to make “stand,” “state,” “stay” and other words. The ancient Indo-Iranian peoples -- descendants of Proto-Indo-Europeans who moved east and south from the Eurasian steppe - used it to mean “place” or “place of.” It’s this meaning that’s used for the names of the modern-stancountries, which got it through linguistic descent (Urdu and Pashto, the respective official languages of Pakistan and Afghanistan, both descend from the Indo-Iranian language), or by adopting it (the former Soviet-stancountries have historically been mostly ethnically Turkic and speak languages from the Turkic family).
Therefore:
Afghanistanis the "Land of the Afghans.”Afghanhas historically referred to the Pashtun people, the country’s largest ethnic group.
Kazakhstanis the “Land of the Kazakhs.”Kazakhis derived from a Turkic word meaning “independent.”
Kyrgyzstanis the “Land of the Kyrgyz.” The etymology ofKyrgyzismurky, but it is usually said to be derived from the Turkic word for “forty,” in reference to forty clans that banded together.
Pakistanmeans “Land of the Pure” in Urdu (from the Indo-Iranianpak, or “pure/clean”), but that’s a convenient coincidence. The country’s name was constructed as an acronym in the 1930s, referring to the area’s constituent cultures:Punjabi +Afghani +Kashmiri +Sindhi + Balochistan(and an extraithrown in to aid pronunciation).
Tajikistanis the "Land of the Tajiks.”Tajikwas used historically by Turks to refer to “non-Turks” that spoke Iranian-related languages.
Turkmenistanis the “Land of the Turkmen.” Older sources explain thatTurkmenmeans “Turk-like” or "resembling a Turk,” while more modern sources interpret it as "pure Turk" or "most Turk-like.”
Uzbekistanis the “Land of the Uzbeks.”Uzbekis said to either come from Uzbek Khan, a tribal leader who united different groups in the region, or a combination of Turkic words meaning “his own master.”
September 7, 2012 - 10:21am
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