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This is an archive of past discussions about -stan. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Archive 1

Khalistan

I'm moving Khalistan to the Regions section of the article. It doesn't belong in the Parodic, fictional, and cultural -stans. Jandrinov 17:41, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Bantustan

Obviously its the same suffix, so I do think it should be in here, but it isn't a Perso-Turkic usage, just copied from that by analogy by the white minority government of South Africa. What do people think of putting a note by Bantustan, indicating this? -Fsotrain09 03:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Cholistan

Why is this desert area not in this article?

Because you didn't put it there :-) `'mikka 19:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Pindostan?

I think Pindostan should be mentioned here. Pindostan - satirical name for the USA, often used in Russian internet. DVoit 12:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Added. SublimeWik 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Removing autonyms, such as Hayastan

Why are autonyms, e.g. Hayastan (autonym for Armenia) being removed? The edit summary referred to this being the English langauge wikipedia edition, but I don't see the connection between the language we write in and including foreign language country names in this page. If it's felt that there are too many non-English-language country names that end in -stan to list here, that's fine, but it should be stated explicitly. If not, then we should leave them in. 75.215.239.206 (really, User:JesseW/not logged in) 03:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Foreign country names belong to dictionaries. Misplaced Pages is not a nondiscriminate collection of information. There are millions of interesting words in thousands languages of the world. However if you feel really strongly about autonyms, please put them into a separate section, and I will add a dozen. `'юзырь:mikka 07:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

-ia

Question: does 'ia' mean anything, then? I mean, just look at:

  • Algeria
  • Albania
  • Bosnia
  • Croatia
  • Serbia

...This suffix seems to be dominant in the Balkans; I'm just wondering if it means anything, and the page for '-stan' just seemed like the logical place to ask it. -Litefantastic 23:30, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

and Australia, Canadia(n)... 196.25.255.250 19:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm a little rusty, but I think that -ia is from Latin's case endings, usually feminine. The -ium in Belgium is a neuter version. Not sure why there don't appear to be masculine examples. Also, outside of the Slavic examples, most country names ending this way seem to be exonyms; that is, the "locals" call it by a different name. --Xyzzyva 08:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
The -ia is just a Greco-Latin convention for place names. For example, in Latin, a German was Germanus while the land of the Germans was Germania. In the same way, the lands of the Albans, Croats, and Serbs respectively are Albania, Croatia, and Serbia respectively. Look at a map with ancient names of provinces etc. and it's all over the place. As English developed through its various stages into Modern English by the Renaissance, it developed an affinity for Latinisms and so adopted Latin exonyms for places. Tsunomaru 03:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

-stein

Intuitively (but without proof) I would say that "-stein" is the german equivalent to the persian "-stan". Like in Lichtenstein and Sleeswich-Holstein. Any positive proof or negative disproof on this?

-- ActiveSelective 08:06, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Most certainly not. The Stein part simply is the German word for stone, while the equivalent to -stan is -land (also on its own: Land = country), as in Deutschland (Germany), England (England), Holland (Netherlands). —Nightstallion (?) 20:55, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Are you really sure? Words are often synonymous, so why could a old germanic "stein" not also mean "land"? The German "Holstein" is a small province and "Lichtenstein" a small country - not some stones. And in Holland names with "-stein" are often connected to a castle and the lands around: "Gravestein" and "Drakestein" - also not stones. Moreover, "stein" itself is not a modern Dutch word.
I can imagine that "stone" and "country" were closely connected in the one meaning "home", which is also a meaning of "-stan": "Turkmenistan = home of the Turkmeni" (and not just the ground). Why not the same with "-stein"?
-- ActiveSelective 18:01, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
It is of course possible that the connection goes along the lines of "stone → what houses are made of → home", but as I have not (yet) studied linguistics, I wouldn't know of the Indo-European connections on this. ;)
All I can say is that the German placenames with -stein at the end almost always refer to castles built on stony hills (Dürnstein, Liechtenstein, and so on), and not to countries in any sense of the word. —Nightstallion (?) 01:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
According to the article itself, the etymological equivalent of -stan in German would be -stadt, though the usage is substantially different. Tsunomaru 12:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Islam mention?

Although I am certainly no expert on this topic I am curious about a seemingly obvious omission in the text. Specifically, the fact that almost all nations whose names end in -stan are predominantly Muslim as far as I understand is not a coincidence. Granted the suffix did not originate as having anything but a secular meaning but my understanding is that the fact that so many Central Asian nations have chosen this suffix is to draw a connection with the Persian Islamic influence of the past. In other words, my understanding is that the nations mostly have not chosen this suffix simply because it has been a common suffix in the region for a long time but, rather because it indirectly identifies their faith (in the same way that many Muslim nations use the crescent on their flags even though this really is a Turkish symbol, not a Muslim symbol).

Am I wrong about this?

--Mcorazao (talk) 18:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think -stan has to do with Islam. It's just a common suffix in the area. Off the top of my head, Hayastan is Christian, Khalistan is Sikh, and Hindustan is the whole of India which has different religions. Selerian (talk) 15:22, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Istanbul

Istanbul...as for Istanbul, I have always thought it was turkish interpretation of Konstantinopol. There are similar interpretations of greek toponyms with -opol. Compare: Stavropol( russian city in north caucasus region) in kalmyk language (mongolic) is Sarpul. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.188.137 (talk) 21:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

"Over-use" according to who?

The suffix is often mocked for its over-use, and has led to many parodies, such as the film Lost in Absurdistan or Pat Buchanan's nickname for Canada: Soviet Canuckistan.

This sentence at the end of the article discusses the world from an ethnocentric American POV where non-English names sound "foreign" and absurd. I have tried to NPOV it, especially removing the statement about "over-use". The suffix -stan is surely far less used in names of countries and regions than for example the suffix -land, so it's hardly over-used. Bishonen 17:06, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Btw, I sincerely hope that it's not possible for anybody to to read my version as implying that "Americans are often ethnocentric". On the contrary, my use of the word ethnocentric is meant to emphasize that not all Americans regard their own group as "the center of everything, against which all other groups are judged" (quoting Ethnocentric), or English as the standard by which to judge all other languages. If that is not clear in my sentence, please change it. Bishonen 21:53, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The last sentence does sound kind of snotty now. Really, it's a stupid statement anyway. There are just as many parody countries ending in -ia or -land. I'm removing it.

Stan is a Sanskrit word which is use by ancient persian from where many central Asian country get there name.some historian and specially Pakistani historian who try to present them self Greek,Arab or irani muslim descendant and Deny there Indian past make this kind of story to show as everything they have got came from arab Muslims.--59.162.59.66 (talk) 10:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Ferengistan

Wasn't Ferengistan an old West Asian term for Western Europe, referring to the Franks? knoodelhed (talk) 19:24, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, specifically a Persian term; see Frangistan (as far as I'm aware, the Modern Persian pronunciation is indeed closer to Ferengistan). See also Franks#Legacy and Ferengi#Etymology. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:47, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Only common names in English and native names

There are many "-stan" countries or regions in Persian or languages like Turkish. There is no need to add them. For example, Serbia = Serbistan (in Persian), but it's not a native name or common. If necessary, it needs a new section not the current country section. Zyma (talk) 21:00, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Names of countries and regions with "-stan" in Persian and some other languages

In Persian and some other languages (like Turkish), this suffix is used for some countries and regions. For example, see Name of Greece. Some editors added those names in previous revisions of this article. Do you think we should mention them or not?

  • I think we shouldn't mention them, because there are many "-stan"s in Persian and etc. They are not official, common or native names. --Zyma (talk) 18:48, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

The suffix is not specifically Persian

Not just in persian it means place or country, it's also means the same in other Iranian languages, so show some respect for the other Iranian nations like the Balochs, Kurds, Pashtuns etc. It's used also in the indo-european languages and in swedish language it means city like "gamlestan" which means the old city. In fact persians use it for place not for country or homeland otherwise why the name of their own country is without stan? Such as: Iranstan, Persianstan. I don't understand why somebody insists that it's just persian when it's not. The readers don't deserve inaccurate information. Should we give up and let them continue with their lies? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bergman Gotland (talk • contribs) 10:34, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

You're the editor who responsible for the edit warring. You've ignored cited sources and repeatedly insert your POV. Your edits and edit summaries are disruptive (unsourced changes and nationalistic rants as edit summaries). You falsify referenced text, ignore warnings, and are not interested to participate. --46.143.214.22 (talk) 10:44, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Agreed the term is not Persian at all since it is found in other iranian languages as well, most presumably the eastern Iranian group of languages. I'm more inclined to believe the word is of Pashto origin since it has its roots in avestan. Persian propaganda reeks on this website. Akmal94 (talk) 06:17, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Your stinking Pashtun-Afghan nationalism is pathetic. Stop spamming talk pages with your BS. --106.165.79.32 (talk) 11:41, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
  • I hope your tribalist/taliban brain can understand this: From Persian ـستان ‎(-estān), from Middle Persian -stʾn' ‎(-estān), from Old Persian 𐎿𐎫𐎠𐎴 ‎(stāna-), from Proto-Iranian *stāna-, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sthāna, from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- ‎(“to stand”). Compare Avestan 𐬯𐬙𐬁𐬥𐬀 ‎(stāna-), Sanskrit स्थान ‎(sthā́na). now I hope understand a bit of it. Afghan and Afghanistan are modern and artificial identity. Your Pashto language is an unimportant tribal language with no important role in the history. a nomadic iranian languages limited to villagers and nomads. It's not our problem that the only important and influential Iranian language is Persian since its birth, and once upon a time Avestan and Sogdian, not your modern peasant language with unclear roots. --106.165.79.32 (talk) 12:13, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Is this even English?

I think this article is pure conjecture... so I shall respond to it with guesswork of my own:

"-stan" is a suffix, but not actually part of the English language. For example to say that "frenchistan" is the home of the "french" is wrong on many more levels than that which is plainly obvious. At the very most you could say that it is a suffix that was plucked from a non-English language and used to make some compound propper-nouns. To put it on a par with other English suffixes (e.g. -ology) seems wrong because it cannot be combined as widely as the more accepted suffixes. I dont think it would have any meaning to a typical English speaker.

I suspect that the meaning and origin of this suffix have something to do with the fact that most of the '-stan' countries are islamic or formerly islamic secular countries that were once British colonies or under British influence. "-stan" may be of Arabic or Persian origin, but it's usage comes from an abitrary selection rather than any widely adopted meaning in English or the natural languages of the countries this suffix has been applied to.

Are there any language historians willing to investigate? --Salimfadhley 22:48, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

First of all, this article never claims that -stan is an English suffix. I don't think there's any question that -stan is a suffix. Second, you're correct that the -stan suffix originated from a foreign language. But I'd hesitate to say that it's not part of the English language. English is omnivorous, borrowing thousands of phrases, words, morphemes, and even phonemes from an eclectic spread of languages. So I think it would be safe to say that -stan is part of the English lexicon, having been borrowed from another language. I'm not sure which, but your guesses (Arabic or Persian) seem plausible.
I don't have a scientific study to prove it, but I can offer some evidence that -stan part of the English lexicon. From my personal experience, the majority of English speakers understand that you are referring to a country when you use the -stan ending. The context is often humorous, referring to a fictional country, but this does make the suffix any less part of the lexicon. Example, from a tongue-in-cheek episode recap of 24 on a major television commentary site: SCS also admits to planting the Cyprus recording so that the B-O-M-B was blamed on Fauxraqistan, Tofurkey, and Akalakistan. • Benc • 00:51, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Iryston

I think Ossetia must be on this page because Ossetias (North Ossetia-Alania and South Ossetia) in native language (Iranian languages) name 'Iryston'. Smthngnw (talk) 11:44, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Smthngnw: It needs a reliable source for its etymology. Is -ston = -stan? I didn't find anything about it on Ossetia, North Ossetia-Alania, and South Ossetia. --Wario-Man (talk) 17:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

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-stan countries in Persian and Turkish

@LouisAragon: Only add them if they're notable (either have articles or used in English sources). Plus, how is Gorjestan a native name of Georgia? Both Hayastan (Armenia) and Hindustan (India) used by the Armenians and Indians while I didn't find any source for Gorjestan. Is it a native name in Georgian sources/texts? --Wario-Man (talk) 04:08, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@Wario-Man:, my bad, made a little error there; thought I was editing the "regions" subsection. Yeah, Gorjestan is the native word in Persian for Georgia, not in the Kartvelian/Georgian language(s). - LouisAragon (talk) 14:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)