Quiz Which Of The Seven Stan Countries Is Which? Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Krygysztan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan

STAN COUNTRIES
Looking at the Seven countries whose names end with stan, the countries I know most about are Pakistan and Afghanistan. But for ease of compiling information I am listing the countries alphabetically.
1 Afghanistan
2 Kazakstan
3 Krygysztan
4 Pakistan
5 Tajikistan
6 Turkmenistan
7 Uzbekistan

Since travel anywhere is off limits, the countries which are far away are just as near on the internet as those nearest us geographically. Whilst we are stuck at home, not travelling to work, or socialising, or taking overseas holidays or business trips, we have time to catch up on those countries we have always wanted to know more about.

STAN COUNTRIES' CAPITALS
James Elroy Flecker, born in Britain, wrote about the Golden Journey to Samarkand, a city on the famed Silk Road. The Silk Road ran East-West for miles across Europe and Asia to and from China in the Far East. Samarkand is in Uzbekistan, a country of mosques and mausoleums. Romantically, first in my mind, although alphabetically it is last on my list. Afghanistan and Pakistan I know a bit about, What of the two countries starting with K, Kazakstan and Krygyszstan, the two starting with T, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

On Sunday 12 April 2020, I discovered I had two hundred readers in Turkmenistan. Now, I thought, is a good day to find out about Turkmenistan and all the other nearby countries.

Stan means place or country. So Afghanistan is the land of the Afghans. And so on.

First, which is where?



Looking at the map above, Afghanistan is to the right of, East of Iran (which used to be called Persia).

1 Afghanistan

Afghanistan Flag

This is one of a small number of national flags which show a building, in this case a mosque. It is also a flag showing two flags.

Holding the Afghanistan flag.

Afghanistan (Kabul and Bamian)
The capital is Kabul
The Buddhas at Bamian were destroyed by the Taliban.
The people and languages are Pashtun, and Dari (version of Persian spoken in Afghanistan).
Lots of Afghans live in London, England.

If you want to try Afghan food, several restaurants in London, England, during the Coronavirus situation are offering take away food through delivery services.

2 Kazakhstan (Nur-Sultan)
Wikivoyage says do not mention Borat.
The capital is Nur-Sultan.

Kazakhstan flag

Which countries are on the Caspian Sea and which are landlocked?

3 Kyrgyzstan

To remember the country name, first knock off the stan. You are left with a word starting with K, and another sound similar to k, which is g. Think of Keg. The letter y appears twice. The third letter is r. think of cure. It ends with the last two letters of the alphabet, yz. Think of Kylie as in Kylie Minogue and gynae as in gynaecology. KYrGYZ.

The capital is Bishkek. How do you remember the spelling of Bish-kek?
BI - a BIg busy city where you will surely want to KicK off your travels.

The second city Osh. Think of Osh Kosh by gosh.

4 Pakistan



Flag of Pakistan
The white on the left does not show up on this white back ground page.

Pakistan - Capital
The capital is Islamabad. Other well-known cities are Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar from which we get delicious Peshwari nan.

In London, England, many 'Indian' restaurants are owned and operated by Pakistanis with waiters of Pakistani origin and the menus often feature my favourite Nan or flat bread, filled with sweet fruits, coconut, nuts and raisins or other ingredients.

In Pakistan several terrorist attacks on hotels made the country dangerous for western visitors. When a member of my family went there twice on business, he did not stay in hotels but with families and travelled to work with a local person (a colleague from the office there) and interpreter.

5 Tajikistan
Capital Dushanbe.
Landlocked.




6 Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan flag

Showing the Muslim symbols of the colour green and the crescent moon, and the red carpets with local symbols which are a feature of the country.

The capital is Ashgabat. How do I remember the capital. Turkish men's coffee was cooked and burned to Ash, Turkmenistan, Ashgabat.

7 Uzbekistan (Tashkent and Samarkand)
Uzbekistan is the land of the Uzbeks (and others). It was the centre of the silk road from China in the East going west across Asia and Europe.
Romantic names you know. Tashkent, the capital and largest city. Samarkand, the second city.

Tashkent
Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent was rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake and has many modern buildings, mosques and museums.

Samarkand
Samarkand is the second city of Uzbekistan. Samarkand's name means stone town (or fortress or think of it as land).
Wikivoyage helpfully and succinctly says:

 It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001 as Samarkand - Crossroad of Cultures.

Turkmen Food

 Russian cuisine is served in restaurants. As in Uzbekistan, plov and more central Asian-type fare can be found in markets. Sturgeon from the Caspian Sea is sometimes prepared in a 'tempura' style.

Starters

Meals often start with a soup, as chorba, a meat and vegetable soup. 

Main dishes: 

Another national dish is plov (pilaf), rice with mutton, onions, carrots, spices, raisins, peas or quinces. 

Manty are steamed dumplings filled with lamb. 

Ku'urma is lamb, cooked in its own fat. 

Ichlekli is a meat and onion pie. 

gutap is a pie filled with meat, potatoes, spinach and pumpkin.

Melon
Turkmens are very proud of their melons and the second Sunday in August is Melon Day. August 9th 2020.

History

USEFUL WEBSITES
*1 Afghanistan
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Afghanistan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_cuisine

* 2 Kazakhstan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Kazakhstan

* 3 Kyrgyzstan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrgyzstan

* 4 Pakistan
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan

*  5 Tajikistan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajikistan

* 6 Turkmenistan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenistan

* 7 Uzbekistan
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Samarkand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Elroy_Flecker

QUICK QUIZ
? 1 AFGHANISTAN
 What is the capital of Afghanistan?
Name two languages spoken.
Where were the Buddhas destroyed?

? 2 KAJIKISTAN
 How do you spell Kajikistan? Or Kajikstan?
What is the capital?

? 3  KAZAKHSTAN
How do you spell it? Kazak or Kazak h
What is the capital?

 4  PAKISTAN?
What is the capital?

? 5 TAJIKSTAN
What is the capital?

^6 TURKMENISTAN
What is the capital?

? 7 UZBEKISTAN
What is the capital?
Is Samarkand the first or second city?
When was the earthquake? In which city?
Who wrote the Golden Journey to Samarkand?
Shakespeare. Hemingway. Marco Polo. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Keats. James Elroy Flecker.

Other Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naan
More later. To be continued in other posts.

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See previous post on Turkmenistan. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Luxury and love in Georgia? And the Farsi Language used in Iran.

Flag of Georgia. From Wikipedia.

Problem
Georgia? Where is it? I've been to Atlanta, Georgia, in the USA. But not Georgia over in Eurasia.

Answer
I had just finished an aqua class in London, in Harrow, a very cosmopolitan area. In previous centuries immigrants arrived by boat in the East End of London. Nowadays they arrive at Heathrow airport and live nearby in Harrow.

A dark-haired, brown-eyes lady accidentally bomped me on the head with a sponge noodle. "I apologise!" she said. We locked eyes and smiled several times. When the lesson ended, she and her friend were talking in the water and I went to join in.

She is originally from Iran and speaks Farsi. That language is also spoken in neighbouring Afghanistan.

She recently returned from a holiday in Georgia with family from the UK, USA and Iran. When some of the family can't get back to Iran, it's easy to meet up in Georgia, which was formerly part of Russia but now independent. Currently (November 2017) you can enjoy luxury hotels at low prices, she says. She stayed at the second best standard hotel, because her group wanted enough bedrooms for all of them in the same hotel, in summer, which is high season there as it is elsewhere in the world.

I asked, "What is a well-known landmark which everybody should see, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris?"

"The animated statue of the lovers," she said. "It's a giant statue. The boy and girl move backwards and forwards, towards each other, away, then back again. It's based on the (true?) story of lovers, Christian and non-Christian, who had to part.

"It's not in the centre of the capital city, but the seaside, very nearby."

The statue is called The Statue of Love, or Man and Woman, 8 meters tall, in the seaside of Batumi, inspired by the story of Ali and Nino.

"What about the Farsi language?" I asked. Now I know that it's useful in more than one country, I am more interested. I heard an amusing talk about the Iranian language, Persian, at a Toastmasters meeting in London. We have had two memorable members, charismatic characters, who were originally from Iran.

I thought I would start by learning a useful and an easy word, used in English, and universally. Taxi.
"Is taxi the same word in your language?"

"Yes, we say taxi in Farsi."

I told her that my third level of learning languages will be Arabic and other languages with 'difficult' script. I already speak English and fluent French as a second language. I am learned Latin at school so Italian, Spanish and Portuguese are relatively easy, just a matter of putting in the time. After that, German and Scandinavian languages and Dutch.

I am learning the Cyrillic alphabets for Russian and Bulgarian. I am also learning Greek, and Hebrew which is like Greek, with one of two letters reversed right to left such as the Gimel. (In Greek alpha beta gimel delta; in Hebrew alef, bet, gimel, dalit). The gimel looks like an r in Greek but like a 7 in Hebrew.

I told her that Romanian is similar to Italian (Romania means under the rule of the Romans) with a few French words, such as Mersi for thank you.

"Mersi is also thank you in Iranian!" she said.

My family and a group of friends are already planning a trip to either Madeira (for which I need to learn Portuguese) or Bulgaria (for which I need the Cyrillic).

So now I can say taxi and thank you in Farsi. So can you.

I now have my eyes on learning Farsi, and visiting Georgia. What was previously just a name on a map, is one step closer.

If you are interested in learning languages, a free ap is Duolingo.

Currently (nov 2016) you can learn:
Chinese (hatching - in preparation - maybe you or a friend can help
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English (for speakers of various other languages)
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
(Hindi - hatching ie in preparation, maybe you or a bilingual friend can help)
(Indonesian - hatching ie in preparation, maybe you or a bilingual friend can help)
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Portuguese
Polish
Romanian
Russian
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese
Welsh

USEFUL WEBSITES
www.duolingo.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV9cNxfwfDQ Video of Man and Woman sculpture by Tamara in Batumi, seaside of Georgia.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and other languages.

Learning Afghan Languages: Pashto; Persian Dari; Numbers 1,2,3

Problem
How do you recognize another language? How do you understand what people are saying - at last the general subject matter?

The ladies in the gym's sauna are chatting away. I cannot understand a word they say. I cannot even tell which language they are speaking. Yesterday a pair of ladies from Morocco and Egypt were conversing in Arabic.

Today a pair born in Afghanistan were speaking in another language. I learned that Afghanistan has two major languages.

They speak enough English to speak to me. (I was speaking to one of them earlier in the swimming pool.)

My first question is:
How can I tell I identify a language from Afghanistant? Is it more sing-song than English, like Welsh and Italian? Is it more guttural like German?

Answers
They said, more gutteral, like German.

I was not convinced.

I asked which country's language are you speaking?

They are speaking the language of Afghanistan, the main language, officially called Dari (also commonly called by the old name, called Farsi or Persian), although they can get by in both, the other language being Pashtu (also spelled as Pushtu or Pushto).

Which of the two languages you are speaking?

I decide that they only way for me to identify which language is which, if not by pronunciation, is by vocabulary. That may reveal the different letters. So I start by asking for the numbers one to three in both languages.

English - official language one pashtu/ pashto - official language two dari (also called Dari Persian or Afghan Persian)
one - yak - yo
two - dua - du
three - dree - sree?

What is hallo and goodbye?
Salaam aleikum. (As in Arabic.)

Thank you

Translation Tips
Duolingo does not yet have Arabic or any of the Middle Eastern languages. I am learning the Hebrew, Russian and Greek alphabets on Duolingo. (The Japanese and Hindi are both being prepared but have not yet reached the draft or beta stage allowing you to try out and debate translations on the first version before it is finalised.

Google translate gives Pashto and Persian but translates both into cursive scripts which I cannot read. Dari language is not in their long list.
However, if you type into Google translate Pashto you are offered the link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gkapps.translate.psen

The Reverso dictionary gives Arabic and several European languages and Hebrew but not Pashto nor Persian.

Tips
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Languages_of_Afghanistan
http://wikitravel.org/en/Dari_phrasebook

Dari is written with a version of the Perso-Arabic script.

Dari alphabet and pronunciation (الفباى دري)

ح (he) is also known as ی جیمی (ye-jimi), and ﻩ (he) is also known as ی دوچش (ye-docešma)

http://www.17-minute-world-languages.com/en/dari/
http://wikitravel.org/en/Dari_phrasebook

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See later post on Afghan foods. Please share links to your favourite posts.