Talk:Afghanistan

To Jrkso: Stop cutting pieces of Afghan history out of the article

The Soviet War, Islamic State and Taliban Emirate periods are three very important parts of Afghan history. You cannot belittle them by simply putting them as one section. Also, the information given by the version you keep restoring is heavily misleading (to say the least). The episode of the "Democratic Republic and Saur Revolution" is not that important like the parts you keep erasing and they make a huge part of the history section. Operation Enduring Freedom has an own section. Yet you concentrate only on the Soviet War, Islamic State and Taliban Emirate. The question that springs to mind is, why is that? JCAla 6 September 2010 (UTC)

book

The central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan: pastoral nomadism in transition By Thomas Jefferson Barfield — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.204.45.116 (talk • contribs) 05:20, 19 January 2011

Etymology of Afghanistan

The real etymology of the word ‘Afghanistan’ is as follows. The country of Afghanistan was once a Hindu Kingdom and one of the 16 Mahajanapads,i.e.,princely states of the Bharathavarsha or BharathaKhanda which is today known simply as Bharat or India. During those historical times the people of the country Afghanistan were known to the other princely Kingdoms of the Bharat or India as Upaganas meaning the ‘sub-tribes’ in the then widespread official or the regal language Sanskrit. Naturally the place of the Upaganas were called as Upaganastana, again the suffix ‘stana’ in Sanskrit means ‘place’. The others in the western side of Upaganastana, especially Persians might have been referring to this land and its people as Uphghanstan and Uphghans, which later during the periods of the Islamic raids took the forms as ‘Afghanistan’ and ‘Afghans’ respectively. Its the same with the etymology of the name of the city ‘Khandahar’ whose root is ‘Gandhara’ which appears many times in the Hindu Mythology like Ramayana and Mahabharatha that dates back to 8th or 9th century BC which cannot be ignored. However, the precise history of all these seemingly obvious facts are hard to find as the Islamisation of the land would have destroyed most of the records of its pre-Islamic times, as is the case with the Islamic conquest of Persia. A thorough research on the subject to find the specific historical evidences is recommended. For further readings Afghan Hindu Association of America, Jihad against India,

Whoever took Central Asia out of the beginning, put it back

In the beginning of the article, it said afghanistan was in south and central asia. Now it just says south asia. Please stop the vandalism and put central asia back,
and possibly west asia as afghanstan can be either, but mostly it is considered central asian or middl eeastern.\} Metalman59 22:50, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Title should be Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

The article begins with: "officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,". I assume there must have been a discussion about this but just from someone new to this article, it seems very wrong to not have the official name as the title. It seems to me as wrong as if the United States of America article would be titled simply "America". Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 19:35, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME is the reason. Same reason Iran isn't called "Islamic Republic of Iran" and Mexico isn't called "United Mexican States". --MarsRover (talk) 20:12, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

The same reasoning could apply to the United States of America then as it is much more commonly referred to simply as "America". The official title of a country should be used in all cases; that's a no-brainer. Mr.Grantevans2 (talk) 02:54, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

The common name policy governs here, as you can see in any number of other country's article titles. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 18:44, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

More accurate language needed

The introduction to the article uses the word "countless" in the context "...nationwide Taliban-led insurgency,[21] which includes countless assassinations and suicide attacks..." However, there is no reference validating the notion that there are any assassinations or suicide attacks which have not been accounted for. Thus, it is inaccurate to claim that the number of attacks are "countless," and a different descriptor, such as "numerous," which indicates a large number but not an unaccountably large number, should be used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.18.91.161 (talk) 18:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 18:23, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism

Can someone revert this vandalism in regarding Ethnic groups.--KleeroyJ (talk) 01:47, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Demonyms

The "alternative" demonyms "Afghani" and "Afghanistani" shouldn't be listed here. It's true that they are sometimes used, but they are just plain wrong, officially and linguistically, and if they're going to be mentioned at all it should be in the context of somewhat common mistakes. 192.138.41.10 (talk) 09:36, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

We had a long discussion about this a long time ago, its the result of consensus. Moreover, we report usage and are about verifiability, not truth. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 16:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)