- published: 03 Sep 2015
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The ethnonym Afghan (افغان afġān) has been used in reference to the Pashtun people during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. The name Afghanistan (افغانستان afġānistān; Afghan + -stan) is a derivation from the ethnonym, originally in the loose meaning "land of the Afghans (Pashtuns)" and referred to the territory inhabited by Pashtun tribes south of the Hindu Kush and was later adopted by the Pashtun-dominated kingdoms of Kabul. The Pashtun people are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and constitute the second largest ethnic community in neighbouring Pakistan.
In the 3rd century AD, the Sassanids mention a tribe called Abgân, which is attested in its Arabic form (Afġān) in the 10th century Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam. It likely derives from a Sanskritic tribal name, Aśvaka, used in reference to the Kambojas in antiquity. The Arabic Afġān is an adaptation of the Prakritic form अवगाना (Avagānā), as used by Varahamihira in his Bṛhat Saṃhitā in 6th century CE. Since the Middle Ages, "Afghan" has been used as a synonym for Pashtun, while the native name for the ethnic group is "Pashtun".
Afghan افغان is used, since the foundation of the Afghan state in 1747, to indicate a citizen of Afghanistan. Though, mistakenly used for Pashtuns, it is no longer the reality. The fourth article of the Constitution of Afghanistan states that citizens of Afghanistan include Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkmen, Aymaq, Arab, Baluch, Pashayi, Nuristani, Qezelbash, Brahui and Gurjar who are native inhabitants of the country and that all citizens of Afghanistan be called Afghans.
According to encyclopaedia Iranica, AFGHAN (afḡān) in current political usage means any citizen of Afghanistan, whatever his ethnic, tribal, or religious affiliation is. According to the 1977 constitution of the Republic of Afghanistan (1973–78), all Afghans are equal in rights and obligations before the law. In an attempt to alleviate the inevitable tensions and conflicts of an ethnically diverse state, the republic discouraged reference to ethnic or tribal origin and prohibited the use of personal names that evoke an ethnic group (such as Tajik, Hazara, Hindu, Sikh, Afrīdī, Aḥmadzay, Ōrmuṛ, Nūrzay, Pōpalzay, Wardak, etc.).
A name is a word or term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person, and may or may not include a middle name. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning also) and is a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes, more loosely, called names; an older term for them, now obsolete, is "general names".
The use of personal names is not unique to humans. Dolphins also use symbolic names, as has been shown by recent research. Individual dolphins have distinctive whistles, to which they will respond even when there is no other information to clarify which dolphin is being referred to.
Caution must be exercised when translating, for there are ways that one language may prefer one type of name over another. A feudal naming habit is used sometimes in other languages: the French sometimes refer to Aristotle as "le Stagirite" from one spelling of his place of birth, and English speakers often refer to Shakespeare as "The Bard", recognizing him as a paragon writer of the language. Finally, claims to preference or authority can be refuted: the British did not refer to Louis-Napoleon as Napoleon III during his rule.