CNN Indonesia
Sunday, 01 Oct 2023 23:43 IWST
1. Why do the names of a number of countries that broke up the Soviet Union end in Stan? 2. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan will change their names
Kyrgyz citizens are on a hunt. (AFP/VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
Fractional country Soviet Union Central Asia uses country names ending in “stan.”
Some of these countries include Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Why do they use the suffix “stan”?
Britannica reports the suffix stan appears in various languages as a place marker.
In Persian and Urdu, stan means “where one stands” or “place”. Meanwhile, in Indo-European languages, the root word stan means “standing” and “settlement”, and this root word still appears in Russian.
Stan construction also appears in Persian meaning “land.” So, the word Tajikistan has the meaning “land of the Tajik people.”
Tajik was also historically used by Turks to refer to “non-Turkish” groups who spoke languages related to Iran.
The US site that releases unique facts about this world, Mental Floss, also explains the same thing.
Ancient Indo-Iranian people of Proto-Indo-European descent used the word stan to mean place. This meaning is used to name modern countries in the South and Central Asia regions.
In addition, historically the countries of the former Soviet Union were also mostly ethnically Turkic and used languages from the Turkic family.
For example, Kazakhstan means “Land of the Kazakh People”. Kazakh comes from the Turkic word meaning “independent.”
Kyrgyzstan means “Land of the Kyrgyz.” The etymology of Kyrgyzstan is unclear, but is usually said to be derived from the Turkic word for “forty”, referring to forty united clans.
Turkmenistan means “Land of the Turkmeni”. Ancient sources explain Turkmen to mean “like the Turks” or “similar to the Turks.”
Meanwhile, more modern sources interpret the Turkmen as “purely Turkic” or “very Turkic-like”.
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Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan Will Change Their Names
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2023-10-01 16:43:00
#names #number #countries #broke #Soviet #Union #Stan
