"-STAN" SUFFIX

The toponymic suffix -stan, widely used in the formation of country names such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, is commonly attributed to Persian origins. While this ending is indeed prevalent in the Persian language, its etymology within that linguistic tradition remains unclear. In search of its meaning, etymologists often trace it back to Old Iranian and even further to the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranian language—a construct that, while useful for linguistic modeling, is not a historically attested language but rather a mathematical extrapolation. In contrast, the Georgian language offers a more concrete and morphologically transparent explanation for the suffix -stan (სთან), which is equally common in Kartvelian toponymy.

In Georgian, -stan is a composite morpheme, consisting of the dative/accusative case marker -s combined with the postposition -tan (თან), meaning "at," "with," or "there, where." This construction is frequently employed in Georgian to indicate location or association. For example, in Chubinashvili’s dictionary, this postposition is used to cross-reference related terms:

• makhestan nakhe (მახესთან ნახე), meaning "see at mahe," where mahe (მახე) means "trap";
• satskaostan nakhe (საწყაოსთან ნახე), meaning "see at satskao," where satskao (საწყაო) means "jug";
• rukhastan nakhe (რუხასთან ნახე), meaning "see at rukha," where rukha (რუხა) means "gray."

The usage of -stan in Georgian follows specific grammatical rules. When a noun in the nominative case ends in -i—a common ending for the majority of Georgian nouns—the -s of the dative/accusative marker is typically omitted before adding -tan. However, this omission does not occur with personal names or borrowed nouns ending in -i. Notably, in country names ending in -stan, the root is usually non-Georgian, meaning it is a borrowed term. In such cases, the addition of -stan adheres strictly to Georgian grammatical conventions, retaining the -s before -tan due to the foreign nature of the root.

This Kartvelian analysis of -stan not only provides a clear morphological explanation but also challenges the assumption of its exclusively Persian origin. The suffix’s presence in Georgian, with a well-defined meaning and grammatical function, suggests that Kartvelian languages may have played a significant role in its dissemination across the broader region, offering a fresh perspective on the etymology of numerous toponyms traditionally attributed to Indo-Iranian sources.