This is a list of all the countries in the world by their names
If you look attentively at it, in the English language at least
you will notice that many country names share the same suffixes. In case you don't know, a suffix is essentially a component of a word that is placed at the end of it
The land ones we just saw are an example and so are the Istans of Central Asia
In this video, I thought it would be interesting to get into this topic
and to better understand it, we will learn three things. First, the group of common suffixes that exist within the list of country names
Second, the groups of countries whose names end in the same manner. Without that meaning, there is a common suffix, or at least a suffix with a common meaning
And third, we'll go through some of them within those groups, reminding ourselves of their origin
and understanding if there are any common elements that justify that same suffix
plus what the suffix itself means. This video is sponsored by Henson Shaving
So first, which groups of countries have the same suffix in their name
From what I could gather, the main groups of country suffixes are the Istans, the Lands
and the Iyas. These are, I believe, the only three official groups of shared suffixes
Let's list out all the cases of these three before we get into the other ones and understanding what they mean
In the Istan, we have 7. Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan
In the land, we have 10. Finland, Iceland, Ireland, the Marshall Islands, although I don't know if this one really counts
Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Solomon Islands, Switzerland, and Thailand. They used to be 11, but Swaziland changed its name to Iswatini
We might, however, go back to 11 if we count Somaliland as a sovereign nation
In the EAs, we have a lot. 41, to be precise, this is definitely the largest suffix group
Libya, if we count the sound and not the spelling. If we go by the Libya rule and include the way they sound, rather than the spelling
we can include Kenya as well, plus all others that end with an EA instead of an IA
which adds 7 or 8 more to this group, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea, North Korea and South Korea, and Papua New Guinea
Although keep in mind that some in all three of these groups might have this ending by coincidence and not share the suffix in itself
Then we have some country name groups that end the same way, but not necessarily because they share a suffix
For instance, Ecuador and El Salvador both end in Dor, but this seems to be just a common
conjugation of different verbs that make up each country's name. Timor also ends in Or
but seems to be a coincidence. Singapore sounds the same, but again coincidentally. Iran, Jordan
Japan, Sudan, Bhutan, Oman, Vatican, Azerbaijan all end in A-N, but I also believe them to be
completely unrelated. Portugal, Senegal, Nepal, and with all, but just because. Although Nepal's
case is different, since it's not the same syllable, we'll get into this differentiating
detail just ahead. The same happens with Burundi, Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Iswatini, and Fiji, Antigua
and Nicaragua, Argentina, China, Erzgovina, and maybe we could also include Burkina Faso here
Bahrain Spain Ukraine Barbados Comoros Laos Belarus Cyprus Mauritius Benin Bahrain Liechtenstein Spain could be here too proving the coincidental aspect of the ending of the word matching others
and how going by sound might also be incorrect, but at least sounds better
Canada, Grenada, Uganda, and then Chad and Trinidad, Congo and DDR Congo goes without saying
as do the Central African Republic and the Dominican Republic, but this isn't a common
suffix, they just use the same words. Costa Rica, Dominica, Jamaica, South Africa, and the United
States of America. Gabon and Lebanon sound pretty similar but aren't the same. Ghana, Guyana, and
Botswana all end in the same syllable. Madagascar, Myanmar, Qatar, but in this case, I again really
don't think it counts. I believe the suffix has to be at least one syllable at the end of the word
not just a random selection of letters. Madagascar, car is the would-be suffix
Myanmar, mar is it, not r in either of them. So not only do we have to notice how countries
may have names that finish in the same syllables, but not have that syllable be a suffix, Mexico
Monaco, Morocco, however, do share the same final syllables that could be a suffix. Nauru
and Peru as well, Palau and Guinea-Bissau, however, again, do not. Palestine and Ukraine
are good examples of this too. They have the same three letters, I-N-E, but they're not the same
syllable nor the same suffix. Palestine and Ukraine, Philippines and Grenadines, however
are a different story. Again, we'll get to looking into specific examples in a minute
Panama and the Bahamas could also be considered similar, but not the same. Paraguay and Uruguay
are definitely equal though, and here is another good example of why the syllable issue matters
If we just consider the final letters, then Norway would also be included, but it isn't
because the syllables are Norway, and way is not the same as A
Ruanda and Uganda are the same. Togo and Trinidad and Tobago, if we use Tobago instead of Trinidad
Venezuela and Guatemala, France and Greece. These other smaller groups are the way I see it, not really shared suffixes for the most part
just completely different words that happen to end in the same way. They can just be the same letters, sometimes they're the same syllables, and only maybe, sometimes, they are actually a shared suffix
But we'll still go through some to make sure. In terms of countries with unique endings to their name, it's all the remaining ones, at least 47
Although keep in mind this number may actually be higher, as many of the ones we just saw from the smaller groups of potential coincidental endings
while not unique in the sense that they don't end with a unique syllable, are still not part of a suffix group
So now let's learn about what the endings actually mean, starting with the three groups
of suffixes we 100% know exist. First, the Istan. Interestingly, it's not an English suffix
but rather one that English has borrowed from other languages used precisely by these countries
to refer to their own names. In those languages, Istan, or sometimes just Stan, is a suffix
originating from the Persian language Farsi, denoting a place. And that's it, a place or land
which makes it have the exact same meaning as the other group's suffix, land, except that one
originates from English. Therefore, Afghanistan means land of the Afghans. If we chose to do so
we could call it Afghan land instead. The reason why we don't have more Istans is simply because
of the English language. If it were in Turkish, a lot more countries would be a part of the Istan
group because of what we saw that suffix means Greece to them is Yunanistan Serbia is Syrbistan Hungary is Makaristan and Croatia is Irvatistan Then the land suffix group it just means exactly that the land of X Finland the land of the Finns
Netherlands, the low countries, Zealand, the sea land from Dutch. I won't get into the etymology of all country names here, I've already covered those in other videos, you can watch them if you want
And also the IA group. This one being the predominant one is equally interesting
Its origin is in Latin and Greek, and it's used to form an abstract noun of the feminine gender
but what do you know, it means pretty much the same thing as land or istan
From Latin, IA is translated as land of. Russia is the land of the Rus
Australia is the land of the South. When English-speaking explorers named the places they found
it was pretty common for them to use Latin names. I guess it just sounded more professional
maybe it is the same reason why plants or animals always have official Latin names for their species
The name of the countries in Romance languages have more endings with IA than they do in English
because those names are usually direct descendants of Latin names for those places
If we talked about Italian country names, for instance, Italy would be Italia
as well as Germany being Germania or Alemania in Spanish. It is odd, however, that in English
while the Istan suffixes have been kept for the countries that use it in their own language
The same hasn't happened for many Latin countries, Italy being a perfect example
The explanation for this is in the etymology of the Y suffix
which comes from the Middle English IE suffix, in turn coming from the Middle French IE
which itself comes from Latin, IA. So it's just a modernized version of it
The reason why some use IA and others use Y seems to be random and arbitrary
connected only perhaps to the time when the name began being used. And what about those other smaller groups
We already understood the difference between a common ending, a common final syllable, and a common suffix
but are any of them actually shared suffixes too? Let's start with the two that are definitely very similar, Paraguay and Uruguay
The last syllable is exactly the same, Guay. However, this doesn't seem to be a suffix, rather a common origin in the country's names
which both seem to come from the indigenous Guarani language, where Guay meant something like river
Another example of how common last syllables are different from common suffixes are Rwanda and
Uganda. Both have the anda syllable at the end of their names, but Rwanda comes from the native
Kwanda, which means to expand, while Uganda comes from the native Muganda, which roughly means
united. Funnily enough, the predecessor of Uganda, the kingdom of Buganda, has a prefix
Bu, which means land in the native language. So today, Uganda would mean land of the united people
It's interesting how even through different origins, the land of X trend is so common
What about the biggest of these smaller groups, the one of countries whose name ends with an AN
Iran, Jordan, Japan, Sudan, Bhutan, Oman, Vatican, and Azerbaijan. All eight of these end in the same way, but again, not with the same syllable
And their common two letters ending is simply a coincidence. We can choose two of them to check this
The origin of Iran derives from the 3rd century Middle Persian Iran, meaning land inhabited by
Iranians. Again, the same meaning as the three main suffix groups. The origin of Sudan derives
from the Arabic Bilad a-Sudan, meaning the land of dark-skinned people. With these two examples
you think oh maybe the a ending just means land of as well but it seems to be a coincidence Oman for instance comes from the Arabic Amun or Amun meaning settled people Jordan comes from the Jordan River which in turn comes from the Hebrew term to flow down
And Bhutan we're not even sure of the etymology. I think a good ground rule is for it to be a suffix it has to end in the same syllable
not just the same letters, but even if it does end in the same syllable that doesn't
automatically mean it is a common suffix. Senegal and Portugal are an example of this rule ending with the same syllable but not
being a suffix. Portugal's name comes from the Latin Portus Cale and oddly enough Senegal's
English name actually comes from what the Portuguese called the region when they first
came across it. Senegal is a Portuguese variant of the tribal name Zenaga, perhaps choosing to add
the Gaul ending after their own country name. We therefore understand that in these smaller groups
even when there is a common in-syllable to a set of country names, that is either simply a coincidence
or just a shared name origin for that part of the word. I could go into all the other examples of common endings, but I'd just be repeating the same logic
and getting into the different etymologies of each country name, which, like I said
I've done before in other videos. So, those are the countries in the world that share suffixes, and what those suffixes mean
Until I researched about this topic to write the video, I really had no idea that so many countries
in the world could be categorized into these groups of common suffixes. It really makes us
understand how the names of countries, at least in English, are constructed in such a similar and
almost equal manner, since at least the three major suffix groups all essentially mean the same thing
just spelling it out differently depending on the origin. How many unique ones end up meaning the
same as those three groups, land of X, just having their name origin in another local native language
and how even when there isn't a suffix, some countries' names tend to end in the same way
even if just by coincidence. And it's also super interesting to see which countries have
actually unique name endings and understanding why that is the case, but that is another topic
Do you have any additional information or corrections about this? Let me know in the
comments. Thanks so much for watching this video, subscribe if you want, and I will see you next
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