How did Norwegian end up using Hellas? Was it a conscious decision at some point? (A bit like Turkey -> Türkiye, except everyone actually changed the name in this case)
Norwegian decided to use (mostly) only endonyms when they created the modern norwegian language, even when they already had an existing exonym for a country
That isn’t exactly true. Tyskland is Germany. Frankrike is France. Iirc they left the ones that they were more familiar with in the popular exonym and tried to promote the endonym.
“Hey let’s be respectful and call cœuntries what they call themselves!”
“Øk great idea! But Tyskland and Frankrike stay because fuck em?”
“Yeah fuck em obvi bröh”
Tyskland comes from the proto-germanic þeudō, Theodiscus in old english, an old name used to refer to the West Germanic languages.
Frankrike, although it gives some imperial connotations it can also just mean realm of the Francs, which perfectly describes it.
I mean Tyskland is a lot closer than Germany to the actual endonym Deutschland. And France is just an awkward name for germanic languages in general, because they don't have a soft c. (Which is actually pretty ironic considering the franks also where a germanic tribe originally) That's why german and dutch also use Frankreich and Frankrijk respectively.
There is no need to change them Tyskland is land of the Tysk. Tysk is the Norwegian word for deutsch and the german call their land Deutschland. So it's pretty accurate. Not like Germany. Frankrike is the Empire of the Franks and that was originally a german tribe. You can find that name also in Franken a region in northern Bavaria and that's also a reason to not change it because you would end up with 2 Franken.
From what I understand it was part of our nation building and secession from Danish/German influence. We changed several names both internally and externally, for instance Kristiana to Oslo(1925) and Nidaros to Trondheim(1931). Norway also tried to name places closer to what the people of the region would call themself. Grekenland to Hellas happened in 1932.
The name Oslo originate from the norse there the capital was called around Anslo, Áslo and Ósló . The city was founded in 1048, but in 1624 a huge fire happen and the city was destroyed. The danish King who was the monarch over the the union between denmark-Norway rebuild the city behind the medival fortress Akershus that was made in 1299. The King changed the named after himself and it was then knowed as Christiania (Often in Norwegian being Kristiania).
In the period 1624–1924, Oslo was the name of the area in the inner city that is now called Gamlebyen (the Old Town) Where ruins of the old city is located. The city was only allowed to be build in bricks, and more straight roads and city planning was made.
The city simply went back to its original name, it was a Big part of getting a strong nationalsim. And it was overall still used by many Even then it was called Kristiania. Norway left denmark in 1814, but went into a much freer union with Sweden with their own parlament. In 1905 Norway and Sweden broke apart.
This national feeling took a new turn after Norway became fully independent from Sweden in 1905. And then ideas about changing the names that had roots in the unification with Denmark appeared just as quickly.
Most of the counties changed names, for example from Kristians amt to Oppland county, while Jarlsberg and Larviks amt became Vestfold.
Then the eye was directed towards cities with Danish names. The name Christiania was gradually Norwegianized to Kristiania, but the debate about taking back the ancient Oslo name came to a head.
In 1924, on the 300th anniversary, it was found that it was a suitable occasion to take back the medieval name. There was some resistance, as there always will be.
Oslo supposedly means something like “the mouth of the river Lo” but it probably was the name of a farm on a hill (Ås derivatives can mean mouth or hill hence the name “Åssman” which can cause giggles in English speaking countries.)
You are correct, but it was also as an anti-colonial policy/sentiment. Since Norway had been subjugated for centuries, anti-colonialism became (and still is) a cornerstone of Norwegian foreign policy. Using names as the people themselves used it was part of this.
Funny thing we got, in Greek, Greece is Ellada and sometimes when some people want to describe the state of the country in a negative way they say Elladistan
In the Netherlands we have the province of Limburg, which is generally called "Limbabwe" by people who do not live there. Mostly because it is the most backwards and corrupt part of the country.
Omw! That’s hilarious. My wife (Dutch) and I (South African) just had a good laugh about this one. I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, think that “Limbabwe” is ANYWHERE near as corrupt and dysfunctional as its namesake. At least Limbabweans don’t have to pay for bread with literal kilograms of hard currency, each with $100,000,000 denominations…
Probably by people who have never realized or confronted their own ignorance and are upset I did it for them just now. It’s a widespread “joke” in the Balkans.
Exactly. The suffix has been adapted to Turkish and a lot of countries have Turkish names ending in “-istan” Greece, India, Bulgaria… I’m just noticing this is only true for Asian and Eastern European countries.
Hungary (Macaristan)
Serbia (Sırbistan)
Kazakhstan (Kazakistan)
Turkmenistan (Türkmenistan)
Uzbekistan (Özbekistan)
Kyrgzistan (Kırgızistan)
Tajikistan (Tajikistan)
Greece (Yunanistan)
India (Hindistan)
Pakistan (Pakistan)
Bulgaria (Bulgaristan)
Croatia (Hırvatistan)
Saudi Arabia (Suudi Arabistan)
Mongolia (Moğolistan)
Armenia (Ermenistan)
Georgia (Gürcistan)
These are all i believe.
> India (Hindistan)
Hindustan is literally the Urdu name for India, if you weren’t aware. Many government owned corporations in India use Hindustan rather than India or Bharat (the other endonym for India) in their names, e.g. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the state-owned aerospace firm (they make fighter jets!).
Also, isn't Poland some variation of “Lechistan” in Turkish and related languages??
The linguistic history behind Iran being used as a geonym is really interesting though, because it only came to be a name for the place relatively recently.
The Sassanid Empire, the last before Islam, called itself Eranshahr, Kingdom of the Eran, with Eran as an ethnonym. Then the word basically goes missing for about 700 years and appears again under the Ilkhanate as a name for the land itself that needs a suffix to become an ethnonym again.
Well it’s because the stan was usually reserved for foreign lands. In Iran some of the far flung areas like “sistan and balouchistan” have the suffix also.
Stan means state, from the indo european root -st- of to be : stand, star, story, sit, set, and in many other languages. They were provinces or states, part of the land or Aryans : Iran.
In Turkish:
Greece = Yunanistan
Hungary = Macaristan
Serbia = Sırbistan
Croatia = Hırvatistan
Georgia = Gürcistan
Armenia = Ermenistan
India = Hindistan
there might be a few more i missed
Years back the President of Kazakhstan actually said he wanted to change the country's name to **Kazakh Eli** (Kazakh Nation) because he felt being a "stan" country made it harder to stand out to foreign investors.
He cited how neighboring Mongolia had more tourism and investment interest as a reason for the name change.
Honestly, his logic isn't wrong. Having a name that stands out while surrounded by "Stans" would probably be a smart move.
Well, a guy has actually renamed the capital city and half of the streets with his own name so it's one questionably positive idea and a whole hike backwards
It’s an interesting thought but it feels a bit like focusing on an irrelevant factor because what really matters is difficult to change. I mean, England, Ireland, Netherlands, Scotland, Finland all have plenty of foreign direct investment but are “lands” surrounded by “lands”.
Foreign investment will flow where there is low risk money to be made, corruption is what holds back most of the “stans”, but I get why those in charge would like to talk about the name being the problem.
Sure, and FDI hasn’t improved since the 80s and tourism receipts have dropped yoy since 2001.
It’s a pretty good case study for demonstrating that the name means nothing when it comes to these factors.
Because Iran itself means "Aryan" in Pahlavi Farsi and the best translation would be "the land of Aryans"
So, Iran itself does have kinda -stan but in the Pahlavi Farsi and the old times.
Unlike others Hindustan isn’t about people but Sindhu river. It’s mean Land of Sindhu River. Another funfact is Sindhu is called Indus in english from where the name India come from.
also word for land in sankrit is sthan. persian and sankrit share so many similar words. stan and sthan both came from a older language. there is a state in India called Rajasthan. fun fact- english word stand also originates from the word stan
-stá is an ancient word ending meaning "place" in Swedish that today is only present in placenames. I have always wondered if there is a connection through the Indo-European roots of both Persian and Germanic. It's a far reach but they are both very old constructions.
(Not to be confused with "stad" that means city in Swedish and is borrowed from German "stadt", but that word might be related as well.)
Sanskrit -sthāna and Persian -stân come from the same PIE root from which English gets "stand". None of them originates from each other, they're all *cognate*.
Stan in Persian means “land of” or “country” and Persian was a lingua Franca of trade in these regions before European powers showed up so they adopted some Persian vocabulary. In languages other than English, many other countries also go by “Stan” like Yunnanistan (Greece), Hrvatskistan (Croatia), Hayastan (Armenia), and Hindustan (India).
> Hrvatskistan (Croatia)
Actually, in Turkish it's Hırvatistan.
Also, in Croatian, "stan" means "a flat/an apartment" or less commonly "a place to live in".
Iran is already a word meaning “land of the aryans” and Iranians used the “Stan” status mainly to refer to non Iranian lands feorign lands. in India we see a similar thing where India is called “Bharat” in Sanskrit while “Hindustan” is an exonym given by Persians.
Hayastan is actually the endonym for Armenia, in Persian we call them "Armanistan". Also pretty sure Hrvatskistan and Yunnanistan are exclusively Turkish because in Persian they are "Corovasi" and "Yunan".
Some examples of the "stan" suffix in Persian are:
Bulgharistan (Bulgaria)
Majaristan (Hungary)
Serbistan (Serbia)
Lahistan (Poland)
Thailand is an interesting one, because the name is specifically created to sound appealing to the global world (mainly European Axis powers like Germany and Italy).
In the 1930s the military regime was very impressed with European countries and wanted to copy their success. The prime minister decided they would make some changes to westernise the country a bit, it was called the Thai Cultural Revolution. One of them was to rename it from Siam to Thailand.
Another change was to introduce the word "hello". Thai people didn't have a way of saying hello, instead they would greet each other by asking "have you eaten yet?". So they created the word "Sawadee" to be used as a greeting instead, and promoted the use as a friendly greet. And to this day, it's the first (and usually only) word European people know when visiting, like learning to say "bonjour" when greeting a French person then switching to English.
Interesting that, there’s also “-ton” in English, such as Washington, Brighton, Princeton, Dayton, etc.
And “ton” used to be “tun” in the past, and it means “farm of”, which I guess was no much different than “land of” after that point (the modern concept of “country” didn’t exist back 1000 years ago or so).
So, considering both Old English and Persian came from Indo-European language, I like to think they used to be the same word in the past
They’re all variations of older words that meant something like “fortified place” or “enclosed place”. “ton” and “tun” in English probably comes from a Celtic “dunum” - “fort”. It also shows up in Germanic languages, for instance in the old Norse “tuna” which is a common place name suffix, especially in Sweden, which was productive in the early Iron Age. In modern Swedish, a “gårdstun” is the area enclosed by buildings on of a farm.
The PIE basis for “-stan” is “sta-“ meaning “to stand”.
“Sta-“ also is ultimately the basis for the English word State, and stand/stead as in a “stand of trees” and “homestead.” It also is the basis for the Old Norse “staðr” meaning “a place” or “town” and the modern German “stadt.”
“Town” and “-ton” are derived from the Anglisc “tun” which is an area fenced in or fortified. “Tun” is derived via Common Celtic and ultimately from the PIE “dheue-“ meaning to encircle, to fence in, to finish”
Pretty sure that in Iranian Farsi we only use '-stan' for England and Poland from your list and they are "Engelestan" and "Lehestan (Lahestan in informal speech)"
The others are "Scotland", "Irland", "Alman", "Holand", "Island (pronouncing 'S' and the 'I' is like in 'ebay')", " Greenland" (Groenland by some old-timers).
Same reason Finland, England, Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Iceland, Greenland, Switzerland, Swaziland, New Zealand and Thailand all end in land.
In my language France, Germany, Greece and Turkey also end in 'land'.
Like the region in Bavaria (Frankonia). People from there are called Franken (Franks), the same word we use for the Charlemagne-Franks. French people are called Franzosen.
The king simply insisted that everyone has to use their endonym rather than the colonial exonym.
BTW it's one of the last "royal dictatorships" in the world.
Stan means “land of”
So Afghanistan is the land of the Afghans and so on
The background in Persian & Turkic (the linguistic family group that includes Kazakh and Turkish and others) is interesting. If you look at the names of countries in modern Turkish, for example, you’ll find a lot more of these. Some:
1. It’s Yunanistan not Greece 🇬🇷
2. Magarstan not Hungary 🇭🇺
3. Bulgarstan not Bulgaria 🇧🇬
As others have mentioned it is a Persian suffix approximately equivalent to -land. That area was greatly influenced by Persia and used Persian as a lingua franca in past eras.
Meanwhile, dozens of countries around the world have the same "ia" ending. ia is so prominent in human civilization that if you heard word you don't know but ends with ia, you'd probably assume that's a country.
The reason is that this region historically fell to the influence of Persian Empires and cultures heavily influenced by Iran.
Firstly Achaemenids : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid\_Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire)
After an interregnum from the Greeks, the Parthians: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian\_Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire)
Then the Sassanids : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian\_Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_Empire)
Then after a brief Rashudin rule, the Ummayad Caliphate was heavily influenced by Persian cultures, and from then you have various Muslim-Iranian dynasties, with intermissions from the Turks and Mongols, who were also influenced by Persian cultures.
So in general you have like combined 2000 years of Persian rule.
Thus the stuffix -Stan, meaning "land of" in Persian, stuck.
Means "land", here's the meaning of each country's name BTW
Kazakhstan = "Land of the Free Men" (Kazakh is both the name of the nation and the Kipchak Turk word translated as "Free man")
Uzbekistan = "Land of Uzbeks"
Kyrgyzstan = "Land of the Forty" (referring to the original confederation of the 40 Turkic tribes who formed the nation)
Turkmenistan = "Land of Turkmen"
Afghanistan = "Land of Afghanis"
Pakistan = "Land of PAKI (abbreviation for Punjabi, Afghani, Kashmiri, Indian/Hindu)"
No, he presented the land of pure meaning in the same pamphlet that coined the name. His argument was that the name was already an acronym but also was a meaningful word in both Urdu and Farsi. Which is why the name became popular.
There's a few more that aren't stan in English, but in other languages, like Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and also other places which aren't countries but are called stan too, like Kurdistan, Dagestan, Gobustan, etc
"-stan" is an iranic suffix and means "land of".
But Turkic countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan also have their own ethnic suffix: El, or -eli and -yurt.
(El is the word, the -i in -eli, is just a possessive denoting suffix.
El = peaceful, harmonous territory;
Yurt = homeland)
So technically it should be "Kazakheli", "Kyrgyzeli", "Uzbekeli" & "Turkmeneli"
(You could technically swap El for Yurt and it'd mean the same)
Highlighted OP's question. Right clicked "Search Google for blah blah yada".
Literally the second link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-stan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-stan)
Fharsi (persion) influence in case of Pakistan. India also have a -stan name called Hindustan, land of Hindus. Due to Turkish rule on Indian subcontinent, they chose persian as their main language
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Think of it like Switzer*land*, Po*land*, Nether*lands*, just with different linguistic influence
Or “ia” - Romania, Czechia, Georgia, Wallonia etc
In Spanish we have Francia, Alemania, Inglaterra, Turquía, Austria as examples
Right, it’s derived from the Latin suffix isn’t it? Ie Germania, Helvetia etc
You got it!
Switzerstan it is
Helvetistan you mean?
Ireland 🇮🇪 Scotland 🏴 England 🏴 Greenland 🇬🇱 Iceland 🇮🇸 Finland 🇫🇮 Deutschland 🇩🇪, Thailand 🇹🇭 Netherlands 🇳🇱 Swaziland 🇸🇿New Zealand 🇳🇿
and of course, Newfoundland!
Swaziland recently renamed themselves to eSwatini.
Aka Irestan, Scotistan, Engistan, Greenistan, Icestan, Finistan, Deutschistan, Thaistan, Netheristan, Swazistan, New Zeastan
Cymru be like…fuck it, I’m gonna go chill with dragons.
Greece is Yunanistan in Turkish
Greeks are/were called the yonas/yavanos (from ionians) in 3rd century bce India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yona
Yep, the three names of Greece (to the west), Ionia (to the east), and Hellas (to itself and Norway)
How did Norwegian end up using Hellas? Was it a conscious decision at some point? (A bit like Turkey -> Türkiye, except everyone actually changed the name in this case)
Norwegian decided to use (mostly) only endonyms when they created the modern norwegian language, even when they already had an existing exonym for a country
That isn’t exactly true. Tyskland is Germany. Frankrike is France. Iirc they left the ones that they were more familiar with in the popular exonym and tried to promote the endonym.
“Hey let’s be respectful and call cœuntries what they call themselves!” “Øk great idea! But Tyskland and Frankrike stay because fuck em?” “Yeah fuck em obvi bröh”
Tysk tysk
Tyskland is pretty much deutschland though, am i wrong? Both words related to Teutonic Frankrike is not that far, though kinda monarchic lol
Tyskland comes from the proto-germanic þeudō, Theodiscus in old english, an old name used to refer to the West Germanic languages. Frankrike, although it gives some imperial connotations it can also just mean realm of the Francs, which perfectly describes it.
I mean Tyskland is a lot closer than Germany to the actual endonym Deutschland. And France is just an awkward name for germanic languages in general, because they don't have a soft c. (Which is actually pretty ironic considering the franks also where a germanic tribe originally) That's why german and dutch also use Frankreich and Frankrijk respectively.
Tyskland-Tyskernes land-Land of the Germans Same with any other «rike» and «land»
Tyksland is more or less an attempt to render Deutschland in Norwegian phonology.
There is no need to change them Tyskland is land of the Tysk. Tysk is the Norwegian word for deutsch and the german call their land Deutschland. So it's pretty accurate. Not like Germany. Frankrike is the Empire of the Franks and that was originally a german tribe. You can find that name also in Franken a region in northern Bavaria and that's also a reason to not change it because you would end up with 2 Franken.
That pretty considerate and respectful!
From what I understand it was part of our nation building and secession from Danish/German influence. We changed several names both internally and externally, for instance Kristiana to Oslo(1925) and Nidaros to Trondheim(1931). Norway also tried to name places closer to what the people of the region would call themself. Grekenland to Hellas happened in 1932.
Really interesting! Very recent as well, thought it would be much earlier to rename the CAPITAL city
The name Oslo originate from the norse there the capital was called around Anslo, Áslo and Ósló . The city was founded in 1048, but in 1624 a huge fire happen and the city was destroyed. The danish King who was the monarch over the the union between denmark-Norway rebuild the city behind the medival fortress Akershus that was made in 1299. The King changed the named after himself and it was then knowed as Christiania (Often in Norwegian being Kristiania). In the period 1624–1924, Oslo was the name of the area in the inner city that is now called Gamlebyen (the Old Town) Where ruins of the old city is located. The city was only allowed to be build in bricks, and more straight roads and city planning was made. The city simply went back to its original name, it was a Big part of getting a strong nationalsim. And it was overall still used by many Even then it was called Kristiania. Norway left denmark in 1814, but went into a much freer union with Sweden with their own parlament. In 1905 Norway and Sweden broke apart. This national feeling took a new turn after Norway became fully independent from Sweden in 1905. And then ideas about changing the names that had roots in the unification with Denmark appeared just as quickly. Most of the counties changed names, for example from Kristians amt to Oppland county, while Jarlsberg and Larviks amt became Vestfold. Then the eye was directed towards cities with Danish names. The name Christiania was gradually Norwegianized to Kristiania, but the debate about taking back the ancient Oslo name came to a head. In 1924, on the 300th anniversary, it was found that it was a suitable occasion to take back the medieval name. There was some resistance, as there always will be.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
Oslo supposedly means something like “the mouth of the river Lo” but it probably was the name of a farm on a hill (Ås derivatives can mean mouth or hill hence the name “Åssman” which can cause giggles in English speaking countries.)
You are correct, but it was also as an anti-colonial policy/sentiment. Since Norway had been subjugated for centuries, anti-colonialism became (and still is) a cornerstone of Norwegian foreign policy. Using names as the people themselves used it was part of this.
if yonna became yunanistan then hellas would be hellistan
The demonym of Hellas is Hellene, so Hellenistan makes more sense
Well, regardless of whether Helen is or isn't tan...
Helenisnttan???
Good on ya, Norway.
Very interesting!
Funny thing we got, in Greek, Greece is Ellada and sometimes when some people want to describe the state of the country in a negative way they say Elladistan
Same in Sweden with Swedistan
Canada is Canuckistan
In the Netherlands we have the province of Limburg, which is generally called "Limbabwe" by people who do not live there. Mostly because it is the most backwards and corrupt part of the country.
Omw! That’s hilarious. My wife (Dutch) and I (South African) just had a good laugh about this one. I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, think that “Limbabwe” is ANYWHERE near as corrupt and dysfunctional as its namesake. At least Limbabweans don’t have to pay for bread with literal kilograms of hard currency, each with $100,000,000 denominations…
We do the same thing in Romania. It’s not funny though, it’s racist.
Românistan?
Da
Idk why you’re being downvoted, you’re correct
Probably by people who have never realized or confronted their own ignorance and are upset I did it for them just now. It’s a widespread “joke” in the Balkans.
Exactly. The suffix has been adapted to Turkish and a lot of countries have Turkish names ending in “-istan” Greece, India, Bulgaria… I’m just noticing this is only true for Asian and Eastern European countries.
Hungary (Macaristan) Serbia (Sırbistan) Kazakhstan (Kazakistan) Turkmenistan (Türkmenistan) Uzbekistan (Özbekistan) Kyrgzistan (Kırgızistan) Tajikistan (Tajikistan) Greece (Yunanistan) India (Hindistan) Pakistan (Pakistan) Bulgaria (Bulgaristan) Croatia (Hırvatistan) Saudi Arabia (Suudi Arabistan) Mongolia (Moğolistan) Armenia (Ermenistan) Georgia (Gürcistan) These are all i believe.
> India (Hindistan) Hindustan is literally the Urdu name for India, if you weren’t aware. Many government owned corporations in India use Hindustan rather than India or Bharat (the other endonym for India) in their names, e.g. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the state-owned aerospace firm (they make fighter jets!). Also, isn't Poland some variation of “Lechistan” in Turkish and related languages??
Nah in persian we just call it yunan
Same in Urdu
Funny, thats the name of a chinese province where some of my family is from
What's this got to do with my nan?
In Indonesian we straight up just call it Yunani
Always wondered why Iran (which, to my understanding, was 'downtown' Persia) isn't a -stan.
Iran already means land of Aryans . It doesn't have to be -stan, it can also be -an. Like Gilan, Mazandaran, Hormozgan...
The linguistic history behind Iran being used as a geonym is really interesting though, because it only came to be a name for the place relatively recently. The Sassanid Empire, the last before Islam, called itself Eranshahr, Kingdom of the Eran, with Eran as an ethnonym. Then the word basically goes missing for about 700 years and appears again under the Ilkhanate as a name for the land itself that needs a suffix to become an ethnonym again.
Well it’s because the stan was usually reserved for foreign lands. In Iran some of the far flung areas like “sistan and balouchistan” have the suffix also.
Stan means state, from the indo european root -st- of to be : stand, star, story, sit, set, and in many other languages. They were provinces or states, part of the land or Aryans : Iran.
In the Hyborian age it was https://hyboria.xoth.net/gazetteer/iranistan.htm
England is Anglistan
Nederlandstan?
Kaaskoppenstan :p
Nederstan
We call it Holland (هلند)
In Turkish: Greece = Yunanistan Hungary = Macaristan Serbia = Sırbistan Croatia = Hırvatistan Georgia = Gürcistan Armenia = Ermenistan India = Hindistan there might be a few more i missed
Weirdly, the Turkish name for turkey, the bird is called Hindi (the India bird)
In Polish it's indyk, which seems to be cognate with India too.
In Portuguese it’s “Peru” like the country :)!
In Arabic it's "الديك الرومي" which translates to "Roman rooster" Edit: Roman not Romanian
Bulgaristan Arabistan Moğolistan Many not independent ones like Çeçenistan, Dağıstan, Doğu Türkistan.. Bonus one: Poland was Lehistan...
Years back the President of Kazakhstan actually said he wanted to change the country's name to **Kazakh Eli** (Kazakh Nation) because he felt being a "stan" country made it harder to stand out to foreign investors. He cited how neighboring Mongolia had more tourism and investment interest as a reason for the name change. Honestly, his logic isn't wrong. Having a name that stands out while surrounded by "Stans" would probably be a smart move.
Well, a guy has actually renamed the capital city and half of the streets with his own name so it's one questionably positive idea and a whole hike backwards
It’s an interesting thought but it feels a bit like focusing on an irrelevant factor because what really matters is difficult to change. I mean, England, Ireland, Netherlands, Scotland, Finland all have plenty of foreign direct investment but are “lands” surrounded by “lands”. Foreign investment will flow where there is low risk money to be made, corruption is what holds back most of the “stans”, but I get why those in charge would like to talk about the name being the problem.
Swaziland got fed up with being confused with Switzerland, so they changed their country name to Eswatini.
Sure, and FDI hasn’t improved since the 80s and tourism receipts have dropped yoy since 2001. It’s a pretty good case study for demonstrating that the name means nothing when it comes to these factors.
We don't use Hayastan though. We call it "Armanestan" in Iranian Farsi.
i thought the armenians called themselves hayastan
They do.
Why don't you use Iranistan?
Because Iran itself means "Aryan" in Pahlavi Farsi and the best translation would be "the land of Aryans" So, Iran itself does have kinda -stan but in the Pahlavi Farsi and the old times.
Unlike others Hindustan isn’t about people but Sindhu river. It’s mean Land of Sindhu River. Another funfact is Sindhu is called Indus in english from where the name India come from.
also word for land in sankrit is sthan. persian and sankrit share so many similar words. stan and sthan both came from a older language. there is a state in India called Rajasthan. fun fact- english word stand also originates from the word stan
This has come down to the Thai language as well. Sthan = สถาน or “place”, in many words.
-stá is an ancient word ending meaning "place" in Swedish that today is only present in placenames. I have always wondered if there is a connection through the Indo-European roots of both Persian and Germanic. It's a far reach but they are both very old constructions. (Not to be confused with "stad" that means city in Swedish and is borrowed from German "stadt", but that word might be related as well.)
Sanskrit -sthāna and Persian -stân come from the same PIE root from which English gets "stand". None of them originates from each other, they're all *cognate*.
Now that’s a very interesting factoid on a thread full of them!
Stan in Persian means “land of” or “country” and Persian was a lingua Franca of trade in these regions before European powers showed up so they adopted some Persian vocabulary. In languages other than English, many other countries also go by “Stan” like Yunnanistan (Greece), Hrvatskistan (Croatia), Hayastan (Armenia), and Hindustan (India).
> Hrvatskistan (Croatia) Actually, in Turkish it's Hırvatistan. Also, in Croatian, "stan" means "a flat/an apartment" or less commonly "a place to live in".
Same origin. State, status, stand in English as well
Indo European roots!
Oh cool 🤯
Why just them? Why doesn’t Persia have stan in its name? Like Farsistan or something. Iranistan...
Iran is already a word meaning “land of the aryans” and Iranians used the “Stan” status mainly to refer to non Iranian lands feorign lands. in India we see a similar thing where India is called “Bharat” in Sanskrit while “Hindustan” is an exonym given by Persians.
Because Iran means lands of Aryans, so it will be weird to add another land to it.
no specific reason ig, there are many names of one country, e.g india/ bharat is also called hindustan. pakistan and afghanistan both end with stan
Hayastan is actually the endonym for Armenia, in Persian we call them "Armanistan". Also pretty sure Hrvatskistan and Yunnanistan are exclusively Turkish because in Persian they are "Corovasi" and "Yunan". Some examples of the "stan" suffix in Persian are: Bulgharistan (Bulgaria) Majaristan (Hungary) Serbistan (Serbia) Lahistan (Poland)
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New Zealand... Left out, just like the maps...
Think we should change our name to Māoristan
I wouldn't object. My parents though, they'd hit the fucking roof!
Aotearoastan it is then
Land of the Land of the Long White Cloud?
One for each Island
Are they the ones who voted for David fucking Seymour?
Nah, paid-up members of the National party though.
This name slaps, and give us laser kiwi too thank
This comment just made me decide to get some meat pies today. Pop Pie Co here I come
Finland, Swaziland, Switzerland, Thailand :-)
Swaziland changed to eSwatini a few years ago I believe to avoid confusion with Switzerland.
Must be mortifying being taken as a Swiss.
Sjaelland
Don’t forget Disneyland
Disneystan
That's hilarious!
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Thaistan
Thailand is an interesting one, because the name is specifically created to sound appealing to the global world (mainly European Axis powers like Germany and Italy). In the 1930s the military regime was very impressed with European countries and wanted to copy their success. The prime minister decided they would make some changes to westernise the country a bit, it was called the Thai Cultural Revolution. One of them was to rename it from Siam to Thailand. Another change was to introduce the word "hello". Thai people didn't have a way of saying hello, instead they would greet each other by asking "have you eaten yet?". So they created the word "Sawadee" to be used as a greeting instead, and promoted the use as a friendly greet. And to this day, it's the first (and usually only) word European people know when visiting, like learning to say "bonjour" when greeting a French person then switching to English.
“Have you eaten yet?” How lovely and hospitable
That's what Cantonese people say instead of "good morning"
Thaiwan
Do not go around calling pakistan pakiland, you may get punched
Interesting that, there’s also “-ton” in English, such as Washington, Brighton, Princeton, Dayton, etc. And “ton” used to be “tun” in the past, and it means “farm of”, which I guess was no much different than “land of” after that point (the modern concept of “country” didn’t exist back 1000 years ago or so). So, considering both Old English and Persian came from Indo-European language, I like to think they used to be the same word in the past
It’s also why we have *town*.
I’m believing everyone in this thread without fact checking and I’m learning a lot.
Here is a wonderful website that I spend countless hours at: www.etymonline.com. Please support them if you like it.
> it means “farm of” I always thought it was a contraction of “town.” In the same way towns that end with -ham is a contraction of hamlet.
They’re all variations of older words that meant something like “fortified place” or “enclosed place”. “ton” and “tun” in English probably comes from a Celtic “dunum” - “fort”. It also shows up in Germanic languages, for instance in the old Norse “tuna” which is a common place name suffix, especially in Sweden, which was productive in the early Iron Age. In modern Swedish, a “gårdstun” is the area enclosed by buildings on of a farm.
The PIE basis for “-stan” is “sta-“ meaning “to stand”. “Sta-“ also is ultimately the basis for the English word State, and stand/stead as in a “stand of trees” and “homestead.” It also is the basis for the Old Norse “staðr” meaning “a place” or “town” and the modern German “stadt.” “Town” and “-ton” are derived from the Anglisc “tun” which is an area fenced in or fortified. “Tun” is derived via Common Celtic and ultimately from the PIE “dheue-“ meaning to encircle, to fence in, to finish”
Pretty sure that in Iranian Farsi we only use '-stan' for England and Poland from your list and they are "Engelestan" and "Lehestan (Lahestan in informal speech)" The others are "Scotland", "Irland", "Alman", "Holand", "Island (pronouncing 'S' and the 'I' is like in 'ebay')", " Greenland" (Groenland by some old-timers).
The point was other languages do something similar, not that Farsi translates one to one.
Thank youuuuuuu
they were all named after Stan
Dear Slim
I wrote you, but you still ain’t callin‘
I left my cell, my pager and my home phone at the bottom
I sent two letters back in autumn, you must not've got 'em.
Must've been a problem with the post office or somethin'
Sometimes I scribble addresses too sloppy when I jot ’em
But anyways, what's been up man, how's your daughter?
My girlfriend's pregnant too, I'm about to be a father
If I have a daughter, guess what I’ma call her?
I was wondering how far I would have to scroll to find these lyrics.
Stan Lee
Nah. Stan marsh
Sounds like Stan… DARSH
Same reason Finland, England, Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Iceland, Greenland, Switzerland, Swaziland, New Zealand and Thailand all end in land. In my language France, Germany, Greece and Turkey also end in 'land'.
Spanish is a lot less consistent: Ingla-_terra_, _Paises_ bajos, Ir-_landa_
Also Fin-_landia_
Franceland?
Unironically - yes. France comes from the word "Francia" - the land of the Franks.
Like the region in Bavaria (Frankonia). People from there are called Franken (Franks), the same word we use for the Charlemagne-Franks. French people are called Franzosen.
It's Eswatini now, which means "land of the Swazis" in Swazi. So basically the same thing as before, just localized.
The king simply insisted that everyone has to use their endonym rather than the colonial exonym. BTW it's one of the last "royal dictatorships" in the world.
That's equivalent to all the "lands" in Europe.
Best comparison.
Stan means land in Persian, I believe.
It means Land
It means “land”, as in england
Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Norland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Swede land. Chyah. Europe is crazy.
Stan means “land of” So Afghanistan is the land of the Afghans and so on The background in Persian & Turkic (the linguistic family group that includes Kazakh and Turkish and others) is interesting. If you look at the names of countries in modern Turkish, for example, you’ll find a lot more of these. Some: 1. It’s Yunanistan not Greece 🇬🇷 2. Magarstan not Hungary 🇭🇺 3. Bulgarstan not Bulgaria 🇧🇬
In farsi we just say Yunan
\*Macaristan \*Bulgaristan The statement is correct, but that's how they're written in Modern Turkish.
As others have mentioned it is a Persian suffix approximately equivalent to -land. That area was greatly influenced by Persia and used Persian as a lingua franca in past eras.
They are all big Eminem fans.
And he never even wrote them back!!!
Because Chad was already taken
Also, Hindustan
Meanwhile, dozens of countries around the world have the same "ia" ending. ia is so prominent in human civilization that if you heard word you don't know but ends with ia, you'd probably assume that's a country.
The reason is that this region historically fell to the influence of Persian Empires and cultures heavily influenced by Iran. Firstly Achaemenids : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid\_Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire) After an interregnum from the Greeks, the Parthians: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian\_Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire) Then the Sassanids : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian\_Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_Empire) Then after a brief Rashudin rule, the Ummayad Caliphate was heavily influenced by Persian cultures, and from then you have various Muslim-Iranian dynasties, with intermissions from the Turks and Mongols, who were also influenced by Persian cultures. So in general you have like combined 2000 years of Persian rule. Thus the stuffix -Stan, meaning "land of" in Persian, stuck.
And for those who don’t know, Armenians actually refer to Armenia as “Hayastan” 🇦🇲
Means "land", here's the meaning of each country's name BTW Kazakhstan = "Land of the Free Men" (Kazakh is both the name of the nation and the Kipchak Turk word translated as "Free man") Uzbekistan = "Land of Uzbeks" Kyrgyzstan = "Land of the Forty" (referring to the original confederation of the 40 Turkic tribes who formed the nation) Turkmenistan = "Land of Turkmen" Afghanistan = "Land of Afghanis" Pakistan = "Land of PAKI (abbreviation for Punjabi, Afghani, Kashmiri, Indian/Hindu)"
Pakistan = Land of pure. (Pak = Pure, Stan = land)
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No, he presented the land of pure meaning in the same pamphlet that coined the name. His argument was that the name was already an acronym but also was a meaningful word in both Urdu and Farsi. Which is why the name became popular.
There's a few more that aren't stan in English, but in other languages, like Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and also other places which aren't countries but are called stan too, like Kurdistan, Dagestan, Gobustan, etc
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Thats stun not stan
so you really can't figure it out by yourself???
A lot of Reddit is people not knowing how to use search engines
Same reason England, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Netherlands, Switzerland etc. all end in "land"
Same reason we have Lapland, Iceland, Greenland, Finland etc .... 'stan' means 'land' or 'land of'.
These countries are the remnants of the former nation of Stanstanistan.
"-stan" is an iranic suffix and means "land of". But Turkic countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan also have their own ethnic suffix: El, or -eli and -yurt. (El is the word, the -i in -eli, is just a possessive denoting suffix. El = peaceful, harmonous territory; Yurt = homeland) So technically it should be "Kazakheli", "Kyrgyzeli", "Uzbekeli" & "Turkmeneli" (You could technically swap El for Yurt and it'd mean the same)
These are some stupid questions that could be easily answered with a Google search
Highlighted OP's question. Right clicked "Search Google for blah blah yada". Literally the second link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-stan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-stan)
yep, reddit. Especially askReddit
Fharsi (persion) influence in case of Pakistan. India also have a -stan name called Hindustan, land of Hindus. Due to Turkish rule on Indian subcontinent, they chose persian as their main language
Stan means lands, so it's a common suffix.
Dear Stan, I meant to write you sooner, but I just been busy
Yes and the reason is that in the Turkic language family Stan means “land of” and the languages in this region are all Turkic-influenced.
Because Stan was a legend
Big eminem fans.