Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts

May 31, 2011

What's in a Name

There are many countries that end in 'stan', such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. Pakistan has an interesting beginning. It is an acronym of the different regions, which originally broke down into: P=Punjab, A=Afghania, K=Kashmir, S=Sindh and the suffix -stan. Later, the 'i' was added to ease pronunciation. It might almost be called a place of places, as the name is made up of different regions.

The suffix -stan in Persian means "home of" and in Sanskrit means "place". So, Afghanistan is the place of the Afghanis and Pakistan is the place of the various Paks. In the old days, when tribes moved, the name was given to where they lived. It was their place. Many people still move from one place to another and still refer to their current house as 'my place'.

Incidently, abad, or abat is used as an ending in Asian cities names to refer to the person who founded the community. For instance, Abbottabad (where Osama was killed) was named after James Abbott, a British officer who governed the area during the British Colonial era.