"stan"...

Zia hailed as language pioneer
Daily Times, January 4, 2007
WASHINGTON: It was Gen Zia-ul-Haq who made the first recorded mention of the suffix “stan” that is now attached to many nouns, according to William Safire, who writes a column on the English language in the New York Times. That 1982 citation of the suffix – “stans” in the form of a noun - rooted in the Persian for “home of” - was dug up by Paul McFedries of worspy.com. Safire notes that “Zia picked up the suffix used by critics of South Africa’s proposed black African homelands in 1949”, which had been nicknamed Bantustans. He says the pejorative use of the suffix was then used to describe Muslim areas. Time magazine, in 2001, noted French anti-terror officials had re-named UK capital “Londonistan”, as many Qaeda men were using London as a base between visits to Afghan camps. khalid hasan