-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
Proto-Indo-European verbs of affixes, another way that vowels in the word could be modified was the Indo-European ablaut, which is still visible in languages such as the Germanic languages. For example, the vowel in the English (a Germanic language) verb "to sing" varies according to the conjugation of the verb: "sing", "sang" and "sung". The system described here is known as the "Cowgill–Rix" system and, strictly speaking, applies only to what Don Ringe terms "Western Indo-European" (Western IE), i.e. IE excluding Tocharian and especially Anatolian. The system also describes Tocharian fairly well, but encounters significant difficulties when applied to Hittite and the