Re: [tied] Afghanistan.

----- Original Message -----

From: markodegard@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 1:08 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Afghanistan.

> Gumal = Gowmal?

 

Gumal = Gomal = Goumal = Gowmal

> What reading I have done suggests the Indic staging area was in the BMAC (Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex), a.k.a. the Oxus culture, late bronze age, 2200-1700 BCE (so EIEC). This looks to be the back end of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

 

The route usually proposed is via Bactria and then southern Afghanistan. The historical region of Arachosia (haraxvaiti:) was located more or less in the Kandahar area.

> There has been mention of the Helmand as the protoype of the Sarasvati. This river really does look like it's landlocked. There is a salt pan on my atlas named "Hamun-e-Puzak" that looks like the river's end; a lake named "Hamun-e-Saberi" is just beyond, but the blue line of the Helmand does not seem to extend to it. I would guess 'Hamun' means 'lake' or the such.

 

We'll probably return to this question yet.

> I also note what looks like a desert named 'Rigestan'. This looks a lot like a cognate of 'Rajasthan', both meaning 'stan of the king'. What does the suffix '-stan' mean? Land? Nation?

 

"Stan" is the originally Persian (now also Arabic and Turkish) word for "land" (e.g. England = Englestan, Poland = Lekhistan). In India, <-stan> has been back-etymologised to Sanskrit stHa:na- 'condition, place' (an authentic cognate) < *stah2-no-, hence . Curiously, Polish has the inherited word <stan> 'state (condition), state (in the political sense)' -- we call the US "Stany Zjednoczone". Of course Latin <status> is derived from the same root (*sth2-to).

 

Piotr