Did you know that seven countries have ‘stan’ behind their names?
There are several countries in Central and South Asia with the suffix, ‘stan’. They are often referred to as the “Seven Stans” or ‘Stan Countries’.
Why do these seven countries have the suffix stan, and what does it even mean?
The English names of seven countries—Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—end in “-stan.” Of these nations, Kazakhstan is the largest by area. And Tajikistan is the smallest.
With more than 207 million people, Pakistan has the greatest population. With a population of more than 5.1 million, Turkmenistan is the least populated.
The word ‘stan’ is of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian roots and came from the ancient Persian empire.
In Persian, the suffix means ‘country’ or ‘place of’ Kazakhstan means ‘land of the Kazakhs; Tajikistan is ‘land of the Tajiks. Just ‘land’ in England literally means Land of the Angles.
This prefix is used to identify countries and regions in Asia, Russia, and other locations where Persian culture has been absorbed.
It’s interesting to note that Pakistan was recently named thus in 1930. Pakistan is an acronym for its six cultures: Punjabi, Afghani, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Balochistan; the “I” was added so people could pronounce it properly.
Interestingly, when you think of ‘stan’ the word that comes to mind is someone obsessed with a celebrity, ever since it was used by rapper Eminem in his song ‘Stan’ and Merriam-Webster included it in their dictionary the same year as both a noun and a verb.
This just shows how language means different things depending on context and society.
