# Urdu, Persian: Historical Khanates



## Sheikh_14

Dear Foreros,

What were the khanates of yesteryear such as Khiva and Bukhara called in the languages aforementioned? As far as Urdu is concerned the go to response out to be xaanat since a sultanate is a sultanat but I haven't had much luck online.


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## PersoLatin

Sheikh_14 said:


> Dear Foreros,
> 
> What were the khanates of yesteryear such as Khiva and Bukhara called in the languages aforementioned? As far as Urdu is concerned the go to response out to be xaanat since a sultanate is a sultanat but I haven't had much luck online.


khanates/xânât is خانا ت, the Arabized version of xânhâ/ خان ها.


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## marrish

Sheikh_14 said:


> As far as Urdu is concerned the go to response out to be xaanat...


خانات and خانیت. 
. خانیتِ بخارا


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## Sheikh_14

Perfect! So Perso Latin in Persian is the singular Xaaniiyat too, or do you guys just use xaan for what is
hanlık in Turkish & xanlik in Uzbek? In other words, would Xaaniiyat e buxaaraa would be mutually intelligible in Urdu and Farsi? Thank you for both your valuable responses.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> khanates/xânât is خانا ت, the Arabized version of xânhâ/ خان ها.


This source gives the word as خانیت.

تقویم‌التواریخ/سده ششم - ویکی‌نبشته

۵۹۹ : تموج نجوم در آسمان یک شب تمام در سلخ محرم، و بنای سور دمشق، و ابتدای دولت بنی هاشم در مدینهٔ منوره، و انهزام اونک خان در جنگ چنگیز خان و استقلال یافتن در *خانیت*، و وفات غیاث الدین غوری  ۳.

Also, of this source (25th paragraph, 5th line).

iranian medieval history |  بخارا از دیروز تا امروز از دریچه «شهرهای تاریخی جهان اسلام»


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## Qureshpor

Sheikh_14 said:


> Perfect! So Perso Latin in Persian is the singular *Xaaniiyat* too, or do you guys just use xaan for what is
> hanlık in Turkish & xanlik in Uzbek? In other words, would Xaaniiyat e buxaaraa would be mutually intelligible in Urdu and Farsi? Thank you for both your valuable responses.


I am not sure if for خانیت marrish SaaHib had the word "xaaniiyat" (or xaaniyyat) in mind or the English "Khanate"?


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## cherine

Very interesting. I never heard of this before, and couldn't think of how this would be in Arabic. Thanks to this thread, I learned the term خانية (Xaaniyya), which is the singular, and the plural is خانِيَّات.


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## marrish

Qureshpor said:


> I am not sure if for خانیت marrish SaaHib had the word "xaaniiyat" (or xaaniyyat) in mind or the English "Khanate"?


I'm not sure either how to interpret your doubt but I will reword my answer since I didn't have time then. 

For the English "Khanate of ..." there is either ... ِخانیت in Urdu, or indeed . . . ِخانات in the sense of *ریاستِ* خاناتِ ۔ ۔ ۔. This information is about the singular. I didn't approach this literally as in the thread title, i.e. in the plural.


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## fdb

I think it might be more useful to see what these entities called themselves. “Khanate” is English. On the coins that I have seen they do not call themselves Khanate of anything; the Khanate of Khiva calls itself دار الاسلام خوارزم  . The "Arabic" خانية is presumably a translation of the English.


Coins from the Khanate of Khiva – Numista


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## PersoLatin

fdb said:


> ”Khanate” is English.


How was this formed in English,  what is the etymology of the -ate ending please, similarly in sultanate?


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## fdb

PersoLatin said:


> How was this formed in English,  what is the etymology of the -ate ending please, similarly in sultanate?


 
"*Substantives denoting office or function, or the persons performing it, as marquisate, professorate, episcopate, syndicate, aldermanate.*" ( OED)

It is from the Latin participle suffix -atus.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> How was this formed in English,  what is the etymology of the -ate ending please, similarly in sultanate?


I thought Sultanate was from the Arabic سُلطَ*نَة* & Khanate following on the same lines خا*نَة *although this does not exist in Arabic (apart from "she cheated").
Similarly Emirates اِما*رَة*


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## PersoLatin

fdb said:


> It is from the Latin participle suffix -atus.


Thank you.

Similarly, where does the -id suffix on Sassanid, Achaemenid & Abbasid come from please?


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> I thought Sultanate was from the Arabic سُلطَ*نَة*


Same here.


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## fdb

PersoLatin said:


> Thank you.
> 
> Similarly, where does the -id suffix on Sassanid, Achaemenid & Abbasid come from please?



 Greek -idai.


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## cherine

Qureshpor said:


> I thought Sultanate was from the Arabic سُلطَ*نَة* & Khanate following on the same lines خا*نَة *although this does not exist in Arabic (apart from "she cheated").
> Similarly Emirates اِما*رَة*


Just a couple of corrections, if you don't mind.
Sultanate is SalTana (with a fat7a instead of the damma).
And خانة in Arabic is not pronounced khaanat, except when pausing, and it means slot, tick box.. And is written differently from خانت she cheated.

Back to khanate, I was intrigued by the word I found خانية because it's different from commonly formed similar words سَلْطَنة، إمارة، مَمْلَكة and closer to إمبراطورية and جُمْهُورِيّة and I myself couldn't imagine how it would be formed, so I found this new-to-me word interesting. Even if it's a calque, like FDB said (which I find plausible).

Is it possible that khanates were called إمارة? Or even without a title at all. I can't remember a reference to a country in old texts with titles, always the name of the country not preceded with a description or title.


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## Qureshpor

@cherine
Yes, سُلطَ*نَة* was a typo on my part and when I realised my mistake it was too late to rectify it to *سَلطَنَة*.
In Urdu and Persian, this along many other Arabic words with a *ة *ending are written with a *ت*, e.g سلطنت, خانت. I am aware of pausal pronunciation in Arabic and know that خانة and خانت are not the same thing.

I suppose خانية is formed from the noun خان > adjective  ّخاني > noun خانيّة. I still think that the English -*at*e is linked to the way these words are pronounced in Urdu, Persian and Turkish, i.e. saltan*at*, xaan*at*, imaar*at*.


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## cherine

Qureshpor said:


> In Urdu and Persian, this along many other Arabic words with a *ة *ending are written with a *ت*, e.g سلطنت, خانت. I am aware of pausal pronunciation in Arabic and know that خانة and خانت are not the same thing.


Yes, I'm sure you're aware of this, this is why I wasn't sure whether you were serious or joking when you said that خانة (no matter the pronunciation) means "she cheated". But even if you were joking, I thought I should flag this out in case it woud mislead someone.


> I suppose خانية is formed from the noun خان > adjective  ّخاني > noun خانيّة.


This would be true if the word is formed following Arabic ways of making words and not a calque from English. I honestly don't know.


> I still think that the English -*at*e is linked to the way these words are pronounced in Urdu, Persian and Turkish, i.e. saltan*at*, xaan*at*, imaar*at*.


Why would these words be influenced by English and not from Arabic? (not talking about خانة because I'm not sure about it, and have never encountered it before this thread).


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## Qureshpor

cherine said:


> ...Why would these words be influenced by English and not from Arabic? (not talking about خانة because I'm not sure about it, and have never encountered it before this thread).


What I am saying is that English words such as "Khanate" can be linked back to the original Arabic forms, such as إمارات < إمارة leading to English "Emirates". I could be wrong of course.


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## fdb

The question is if خانية ever occurs in Arabic at all, or at least in pre-modern times. The OED gives the earliest English reference for "khanate" in 1799.


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## PersoLatin

fdb said:


> Greek -idai.


Thank you.

This is from OED:

“This -idae is the plural of Latin -ides, a masculine patronymic (indicating "descent from"), *from Greek -ides "son of," denoting descent from the person to whose name it is attached (such as Heraklides).”
*
Is it possible that -iān on هخامنشیان & ساسانیان has a similar meaning or, that ending is simply the associative -i plus -ān plural marker?


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## marrish

In Persian, I can see that "خان نشین" is also used for "khanate". In the line with the discussion, here are some nouns which can denote a form of government:
مملکت
سلطنت
خلافت
امامت
خانیت
ریاست
دولت


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