-stan "koborsthan" ( "") "graveyard/cemetery", known as "Qabaristan" as (). Originally an independent noun, this morpheme evolved into a suffix by virtue of appearing frequently as the last part in nominal compounds. It is of Indo-Iranian and ultimately Indo-European origin: It is cognate with Sanskrit "" (Devanagari: ), meaning "the act of standing", from which many further meanings derive, including "place, location; abode, dwelling", and ultimately descends from Proto-Indo-Iranian . The Proto-Indo-European root from which this noun is derived is (older reconstruction ) "to stand" (or "to stand up, to step (somewhere), to position (oneself)"), which is also the source of
-stan as Soviet republics: "Turkmenistan" was frequently "Turkmenia", "Kyrgyzstan" often "Kirghizia", and even "Uzbekistan" was very rarely "Uzbekia". -stan The suffix -"stan" () is Persian for "place of" or "country". It appears in the names of many regions in Iran, Afghanistan, Central and South Asia, but also in the Caucasus and Russia; areas where significant amounts of Persian culture were spread or adopted. The suffix "-stan" is analogous to the suffix "-land", present in many country and location names. The suffix is also used more generally, as in Persian (borrowed into Urdu) "rigestân" () "place of sand, desert", "golestân" () "place