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Was watching the news the other night when it struck me how many west-Asian countries end with "stan" as in:
Kazakhstan
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Kyrgyzstan
Turkmenistan
Afghanistan
Pakistan
So I went online and found this: The suffix comes from the Persian root "istan," or "land" — hence the "land of the Uzbeks," "land of the Kazakhs," and so forth. Makes sense to me.
There's also a lot of countries that end with "land" but in English, like:
Iceland
Poland
Ireland
and that also makes sense.
Note: We're talking about how the countries are named in English ... not in their native tongue (Germany vs. Deutschland). And what I was wondering was why so many countries also end with "ia" as in:
Serbia
Russia
Persia
Nigeria
Bolivia
These countries aren't geographically grouped like the other two sets, which makes it even more curious. Does anyone know if there's some common linguistic root for this naming convention?
Our names for countries aren't the same a their own names. For instance, Switzerland versus Helvetika, Deutschland versus Germany.
Having many countries called Somethingstan or Somethngland is not all that odd when you see people's family names that are MacSomething, deSonething, or somethingson. The names are descriptive. England is land of the Angles, Deutscgland and Netherland both mean lowlands, MacSomething means of the Something clan, deSomething means of the Something (often a city) and Somethingson means son of Something.
In the Old World, city-states were established and named when an extebded family of hunter/gatherers adopted a non-migratory life.
Many family surnames are occupations, colors, or origins. I presume Eric the Red had ginger beer. After the emancipation Proclamation. former slaves adopted surnames. There are a lot of Jackson and Johnsons among the former slaves, which is perhaps understandable in a population where male parentage was often obscured, and I have wondered if the King ranch, one of the largest in Texas, led to families adopting the King name out of respect for a former slave ower that was respected (or perhaps one who impregnated their mother) or as a way to identify where the family had lived.
I would think there would be a substantial market for a reference book of surnames that would indicate when and where a surname originated. There's be a lot of research needed, and conflicting family stories resolved, and anyone and everyone would cry foul when they decided that their family history had been maligned. In any forum with a lot of drive-by traffic, I would be excoriated for suggesting why people might have chosen the "King" name. And it might be none of what I suggested; Perhaps people chose that family name like calling your aby Rex, to signify royalty, free to do what he pleases. I don't have any dog in that fight. Until the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act, you were free to change your name from Archibald Leach to Marion Morrison or John Wayne without bothering a court, and claiming glory for something a parent did, rather than your own accomplishments, is stolen glory.
Concerning names, check out American Name Society. They don't just study American names; they are just organized in America.
My question about the "ia" suffix hadn't really been answered, so I did some more research and found a plausible explanation. I'll post it here for reference.
I think RobertB had it right, but I didn't understand where it came from. It appears it is indeed of Latin or Greek origin (as I guessed earlier). The "ia" suffix was used in those languages to denote an abstract or plural form of a noun, so it was an appropriate way to name a country. And, of course, a lot of Latin and Greek got dragged into English. That works for me. Question answered. Here's my links:
Once on Prairie Home Companion they had a skit about a field reporter in Afghanistan. His name is John Notright. He is reporting from the small rural village of Reallyreallybad in the bordering country of Dontunderstan. However, things got too hot for John there, so he moved on down the road to the hotbed of political dissent, Yomamabad in Hotdogastan.
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