-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 migrations extended the Indo-European culture zone east of the Ural mountains, giving rise to Proto-Indo-Iranian and the subsequent spread of the Indo-Iranian languages toward India and the Iranian plateau. According to Anthony, steppe herders, archaic Proto-Indo-European speakers, spread into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BCE, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe. According to Anthony, their languages "probably included archaic Proto-Indo-European dialects of the kind partly preserved later in Anatolian." According to Anthony their descendants later moved into Anatolia, at an unknown time, but maybe as early as 3,000 BCE. According to Mathieson & Reich et