-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
Indo-European s-mobile and Russian "stog". The fact that there is no consistency about which language groups retain the s-mobile in individual cases is good evidence that it is an original Indo-European phenomenon, and not an element added or lost in the later history of particular languages. Sometimes subsequent developments can treat the forms with and without the s-mobile quite differently. For example, by Grimm's law PIE becomes Proto-Germanic "f", but the combination is unaffected by this. Thus the root "", perhaps meaning 'scatter' has two apparently quite dissimilar derivatives in English: "sprinkle" (from nasalized form *"sprenk-") and "freckle" (from *"prek-"). S-mobile is