Toponymy of Pakistan

Toponymy of Pakistan is a set of geographical names, including the names of natural and cultural objects on the territory of Pakistan. The structure and composition of toponymy are determined by such factors as the composition of the population, the specifics of historical development and geographical location.

 Name of the country 

The name "Pakistan" literally means "land of the pure" in Urdu and Persian, from the word pāk, meaning "pure" in Persian and Pashto. The suffix ستان (-stān) is a Persian word meaning place, and also resembles the synonymous Sanskrit word sthāna स्थान.

The name of the country was coined in 1933 by Rahmat Ali (then a student at Cambridge), an activist in the movement for the creation of an independent Muslim state in British India, who published a pamphlet "Now or Never", where he used the acronym as the name of the future state without the letter "i" ("thirty million Muslim brothers who live in PAKSTAN"), from the names of the five northern regions of British India: Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan.. — «These sentiments were presented on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in Pakistan, by which we mean the five northern units of India, viz. Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan (Pakistan--land of the pure--was later adopted as the name of the new Muslim state, and spelled as Pakistan).». When spelled: P - Punjab, A - Afghanistan, K - Kashmir, S - Sindh and TAN — the last three letters of the name "Baluchistan". Since the Urdu language, on the basis of which the name is derived, uses the Arabic script, in which short vowels are not displayed in the script, the short vowel "i" in the name "Pakistan" is not reflected in the abbreviation. Subsequently, on the advice of a certain Dr. Khan, the name "Pakstan" was changed to the more euphonious "Pakistan".Aziz, 114 The resulting name "Pakistan" also has another interpretation: if we consider it as a word composition, on the basis of the same language, Urdu Pak means "pure, clear, unstained, flawless, virtuous", and stan means "country", that is, "country of pure people", by which, obviously, Muslims are meant.

During the Dissolution and Formal Partition of British India in 1947, according to the Mountbatten Plan, two states were created - Modern India and Pakistan, and the territory of the latter consisted of two parts, territorially separated from each other by 1600 kilometres - West and East Pakistan, which in 1971 became the independent state of Bangladesh, the name "Pakistan" remained only for the western part of the state.

The current official name of the country is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان, Islami Jumhuriya Pakistan).

 Structure and composition of toponymy 
The toponymic system of Pakistan, as well as South Asia as a whole, is one of the most complex on the planet and at the same time the least studied. Many local toponyms, especially ancient ones (mainly hydronyms), go back to the ancient Indian language – Sanskrit. On the basis of Sanskrit, many modern languages of South Asia (Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu and others) were formed. Later toponyms are associated with these languages, for example, in the oikonymy of the country there are many cities with the formant -pur - "city": Aminpur, Bahawalpur, Jalalpur, Dipalpur, Mirpur, Rajanpur, Risalpur, Khairpur, Khanpur, Haripur, Hasilpur, Shikarpur.

As for the oikonyms of the country's largest cities, the city of Karachi was founded in 1729 as the settlement of Kulachi, whose name goes back to the ethnonym of the Baloch tribe. Toponymic legend has it that the new settlement was named after the fisherwoman Mai Colachi, whose son killed a man-eating crocodile in the village after a crocodile killed his older brothers. Oikonym Gujranwala means "abode of the Gujars" from the ethnonym of a tribe living in northern Punjab. In relation to the oikonym Lahore, there are several versions of its etymology. One theory suggests that the name is a corruption of the word Ravāwar, as shifts from R to L are common in languages derived from Sanskrit. Ravāwar is a simplified pronunciation of the name Iravatyāwar, which possibly refers to the Ravi River, known in the Vedas as Iravati. Another theory suggests that the name of the city may be derived from the word Lohar, which means "blacksmith". There is also a Hindu legend according to which the name "Lahore" comes from Lavpuror Lavapuri ("City of Lava"), from the name of the legendary founder of the city, the character of the Ramayana, the prince of Lava, the son of Sita and Rama. The oikonym "Peshawar" comes from Sanskrit PuruSa-Puram, where "purusha" means "servant" and "puram" means "city", i.e. "service city", which seems to indicate the "service" role of the city - the protection of the approaches to the Khyber Pass. The city of Rawalpindi was founded on the site of an ancient city Fathpur, the name of which meant "city of victory" (in Urdu "fath" means "victory", "pur" means "city"). The new city was named after the leader of the local tribe Raval Khan Rawalpindi, where "Raval" is a personal name, "pind" means "village, settlement".

In hydronymy, the Russian name "Indus" comes from the Hindi and Urdu names "Sindh" (Hindi सिन्धु नदी, Urdu دریائے سندھ). The Arabis (Khub) River was mentioned by Alexander the Great under this name, which is derived from the ethnonym of the Arabian tribe living in this region[21]. The Gumal River, according to the dictionary of geographical names of foreign countries, has the Russian name Gomal, and is mentioned in the Ramayana under the name Gomati. The largest tributary of the Indus, the Sutlej, is mentioned in the Rig Veda as Siutudri, in modern Hindi and Urdu it is called Satlaj or Satluj (Urdu ستلج Satlaj.

 References 

Category:History of Pakistan