They appear in the names of many countries and regions, especially in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, areas where ancient Indo-Iranian peoples were established; in Iranian, however, it is also used more generally, as in Persian rigestan (ريگستان) 'place of sand, desert' and golestan (گلستان) 'place of roses, rose garden', Hindi/Sanskrit devasthan (place of devas, "temple"), etc. Both suffixes are of Indo-Iranian and ultimately Indo-European origin, the Proto-Indo-European root being *stā- 'stand,' which is also the source of English stand, Latin stāre, and Greek histamai (ίσταμαι), all meaning 'stand,' as well as many other words, for instance the Russian word стан (stan) meaning 'settlement' or 'semi-permanent camp' (used in reference to semi-nomadic settlements encountered in certain areas of Central Asia) or in other Slavic languages such as Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian where stan means 'apartment'
#
Posted on Friday, 04 July 2008 at 7:10 PM
Edited on Friday, 29 August 2008 at 10:12 AM