-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 nominals verbs. A lexical word (as would appear in a dictionary) was formed by adding a "suffix" (S) onto a "root" (R) to form a "stem". The word was then inflected by adding an ending (E) to the stem. The root indicates a basic concept, often a verb (e.g. 'give'), while the stem carries a more specific nominal meaning based on the combination of root and suffix (e.g. 'giver', 'gift'). Some roots seem to have no definable meaning, as in 'father'; and some stems cannot clearly be broken up into root and suffix altogether, as in 'bear'. The ending carries grammatical