| Kommentar | Belatedly ...
Isn't the problem, then, that in the original the root has one S sound, Kirghiz- (probably voiced, like Z in English?), and then the suffix has a second S sound, -stan (unvoiced, like ß in German)?
But you can't write that in German, can you? A voiced S sound can't be written without a vowel after it, and you can't write two unvoiced S sounds, they'll just look like a double S or ß. So that's why German adds the extra letter I? That makes sense to me, and I think that's the point of the last sentence of the Wikipedia quote in #10 about the two morphemes.
That is, if you dropped the Z, you would have
Kirgi + stan,
but that would be wrong, because the people aren't the Kirgi, they're the Kirghiz.
OT: The change since independence in 1991 has apparently been just as confusing in English. Our choices according to the NOAD are Kyrgyzstan (first choice), Kirghizia, or Kyrgyz Republic; but for the people, still Kirghiz as the first choice, or alternatively Kyrgyz. Jyz Louise. (-;
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