Post by asiaticdarkperson on Feb 15, 2012 9:54:20 GMT -5
I believe in Nahuatl the suffix -an generally implies a place. Like in Mazatlan which means place of deer. Or in tolan (pronounced tola-an) which means place of toltecs, or place of people who know.
Strangely enough, -an basically means the same thing in Farsi. Iran itself means place of the Irs, which is actually "place of the aryans."
Then there's Tehran, Gilan, Mazandaran, Gorgan, Khorasan, Azerbaijan, Semnan, etc. These are names of provinces of Iran today.
For example, Gorgan (latin Hyrcania) which used to be varka-an in antiquity means place of wolves.
Azerbaijan apparently means "place of fire" in reference to the Yanar Dag in the modern day nation of Azerbaijan, I believe.
But this strange coincidence doesn't end here. At the extreme east of Asia we find Japan. In Farsi, Japan is called Japan and it means "place of the Japs."
I think the modern -stan is just a corrupted form of -an, so as to make the words easier to pronounce. Hindustan flows off the tongue much smoother than Hindu-an or Indus-an IMO. Same goes for Pakistan I think and the word Afghan already ends in -an so Afghanan would sound really dumb IMO. But kidding aside, in Farsi the word Afghan already means place of the Afghs. So this particular case is just simple confusion.
And just one more, this time from 500BC. Back then the Persians called the Greeks "the Ions" and their land "Ionan" (latin Ionia; I-own-ya?). Today in Farsi Greece is Younan.
Strangely enough, -an basically means the same thing in Farsi. Iran itself means place of the Irs, which is actually "place of the aryans."
Then there's Tehran, Gilan, Mazandaran, Gorgan, Khorasan, Azerbaijan, Semnan, etc. These are names of provinces of Iran today.
For example, Gorgan (latin Hyrcania) which used to be varka-an in antiquity means place of wolves.
Azerbaijan apparently means "place of fire" in reference to the Yanar Dag in the modern day nation of Azerbaijan, I believe.
But this strange coincidence doesn't end here. At the extreme east of Asia we find Japan. In Farsi, Japan is called Japan and it means "place of the Japs."
I think the modern -stan is just a corrupted form of -an, so as to make the words easier to pronounce. Hindustan flows off the tongue much smoother than Hindu-an or Indus-an IMO. Same goes for Pakistan I think and the word Afghan already ends in -an so Afghanan would sound really dumb IMO. But kidding aside, in Farsi the word Afghan already means place of the Afghs. So this particular case is just simple confusion.
And just one more, this time from 500BC. Back then the Persians called the Greeks "the Ions" and their land "Ionan" (latin Ionia; I-own-ya?). Today in Farsi Greece is Younan.