{"id":43354,"date":"2019-06-25T09:33:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T14:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=43354"},"modified":"2019-06-25T09:33:15","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T14:33:15","slug":"uyghurstan-or-uyghuristan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=43354","title":{"rendered":"Uyghurstan or Uyghuristan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many countries in Central Asia are named with words that end in -stan, which is a Persian term (\u0640\u0633\u062a\u0627\u0646<\/a> [-st\u0101n<\/i><\/a>]) meaning \"land\" or \"place of\", thence \"country\"; it is synonymous and cognate with the Sanskrit word sth\u0101na<\/a><\/i> \u0938\u094d\u0925\u093e\u0928 (<\/span>from Indo-Iranian *stanam<\/span> \"place,\" literally \"where one stands,\" from PIE *sta-no-<\/span>, suffixed form of root *sta-<\/a> \"to stand, make or be firm.\" Source<\/a>). \u00a0 Consequently, we refer to these countries as \"the stans\":<\/span><\/p>\n

Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Note, however, that five of these names have an -i- before the -stan, while two — <\/span>Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan — lack the -i-.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Since the Uyghurs may one day have a country of their own with a name ending in -stan, I wondered whether there is a rule governing whether it should be \"Uyghurstan\" or \"Uyghuristan\".<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jamal Elias remarks:<\/p>\n

The Persian suffix \"ist\u0101n\" means \"country,\" \"large province\" etc. Thus Afghanistan is \"Land of the Afghans\" and Tajikistan \"Land of the Tajiks\". The same applies to Kurdistan, Baluchistan, Gurjistan (Georgia), Magyaristan (Hungary), Bulgaristan, Yunanistan (Greece) and so on. The reason Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan plus a few others don't have the \"i\" is probably because of the phonetic representation of the suffix's pronunciation in those Turkic languages. I suspect it's tougher to say those names with the \"i\" in agglutinative languages that have vowel harmony. Those countries' names have the \"i\" in Persianate and Indo-Persian pronunciations.<\/p>\n

If the Uyghurs got a \"-stan,\" Iranians, Afghans and Pakistanis would almost certainly call it Uyghuristan and probably the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz would call it Uyghurstan. I don't know what the Uyghurs would do themselves, although I suspect the would follow the usage of their Turkic relatives.<\/p>\n

In addition to the \"-istan\" names listed by Jamal, Fondukistan, Waziristan, and many others come to mind. Indeed, here is a list of more than fifty names derived from -st\u0101n<\/a>, and \u2014 with three exceptions where the first part of the name ends in a vowel \u2014 all of the Romanized transcriptions of their names end in \u2013est\u00e2n (not \u2013ist\u00e2n).<\/p>\n

Erika Gilson makes the interesting observation that people names, such as Uzbeki, Tajiki, Turkmeni, and Azeri all end in -i, but she has not heard *Kazakhi, *Kyrgyzi, and *Uyguri.<\/p>\n

Marcel Erdal reports the view of one Uyghur acquaintance who says it should be Uyghurstan \"because the suffix is stan and not istan\"; but he notes that she's lived in Kazakh(i)stan and Kirghiz(i)stan for many years.\u00a0 He further observes that, for the Turks (in Turkey) it's also -istan, like the Iranians, etc.<\/p>\n

Pardis Minuchehr ties up a lot of loose ends with the following observations (from a Persian point of view):<\/p>\n

A place for the Uyghurs, would be called Uyghuristan. The connection requires an \/e\/ sound, which is transliterated as\/i\/ sometimes.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
All of the stans you named are preceded by an \/e\/ sound, mainly because we can\u2019t have a cluster of three consonants together in Persian.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Pakistan, however, is a different made up word, and the etymology does not refer to a place but is rather an acronym.<\/p>\n

Back to your question, if there is an 'i' there preceding the \u2018stan\u2019 it is a matter of transliteration. Phonetically, they will all have the \/e\/ sound between the \/st\/ cluster and the preceding vowel. And since this sound here doesn\u2019t have another grammatical significance, I believe it is merely phonetics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

My two cents.<\/div>\n

So how do things stand now?<\/p>\n

Uyghurstan 32,300 ghits<\/p>\n

Uyghuristan 37,900 ghits<\/p>\n

Uyghurestan 1,280 ghits<\/p>\n

And how should we refer to this region for the present?\u00a0 I suppose it all depends on your ethnic and political orientation.\u00a0 Here's what I wrote on this subject three years ago:<\/p>\n

Xinjiang<\/a>\u00a0 \u65b0\u7586 (lit., \"New Frontiers \/ Borders \/ Boundaries\") is the northwesternmost and largest (one sixth of the whole country) among all of China's 34 provincial-level administrative units.\u00a0 It got its present official name in the 1880s under the Manchus during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), but it has also been called, among other names, \"Western Regions\", Eastern Turkestan, and Uyghurstan.\u00a0 When suitable, I prefer to refer to this region as Eastern Central Asia (ECA), since the latter designation is purely geographical in nature and has no political implications.<\/span><\/p>\n

From \"<\/span>A confusion of languages and names<\/a>\" (7\/8\/16).<\/span><\/p>\n

My ECA works well for archeological purposes and when I'm writing about ancient history, but in modern times it's hard to avoid making a political statement when one designates the region of the Tarim and Dzungarian basins, together with their environs.<\/p>\n

Reading<\/b><\/p>\n

Wikipedia has a long article on \"-stan\"<\/a>, with extensive treatment of its etymology and cognates, lists of countries, regions, cities, and counties incorporating this suffix, as well as lengthy lists of fictional and fanciful names ending in -stan, e.g.:<\/p>\n

Absurdistan<\/a> \u2013 sometimes used to satirically describe a country where everything goes wrong<\/p>\n

Bradistan<\/a> \u2013 a moniker for Bradford<\/a>, England, owing to its large population of Pakistani worker migrants<\/p>\n

Iranistan<\/a> \u2013 a pseudo-orientalist mansion built for P. T. Barnum in 1848 in Connecticut<\/p>\n

Jewistan<\/a> \u2013 a pejorative name proposed by Francis Boyle<\/a> to replace the name of the state of Israel<\/a>
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

New Yorkistan<\/a><\/i> \u2013 the title of the cover art for the December 10, 2001 edition of The New Yorker<\/a><\/i> magazine<\/p>\n

The New Yorkistan map itself included various districts ending in -stan<\/i>, e.g., Bronxistan, Cold Turkeystan, Fuhgeddabouditstan, Gaymenistan, Taxistan, Youdontunderstandistan, etc.<\/p>\n

Yooperstan \u2013 a satirical name for regions of Michigan<\/a> speaking Upper Peninsula English<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many countries in Central Asia are named with words that end in -stan, which is a Persian term (\u0640\u0633\u062a\u0627\u0646 [-st\u0101n]) meaning \"land\" or \"place of\", thence \"country\"; it is synonymous and cognate with the Sanskrit word sth\u0101na \u0938\u094d\u0925\u093e\u0928 (from Indo-Iranian *stanam \"place,\" literally \"where one stands,\" from PIE *sta-no-, suffixed form of root *sta- \"to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-and-politics","category-names","category-phonetics-and-phonology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43354"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43367,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43354\/revisions\/43367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}