Maidan

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Maidān (میدان) is the term for any open plain, park or square near a town in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu and several Indian languages. In Western Ukrainian dialects maidan is a square inside a city or town. The ultimate source of the word is Arabic maydān.[1]

The Ukrainian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet, and the letter й may be transliterated into an I, Y, or J, depending on the transliteration system in use, hence majdan or maidan.

Majdan is also a common location name found in Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine, for example, Majdanek.

In the novel "Flashman in the Great Game" by George MacDonald Fraser, the term is used frequently to refer to the parade grounds at British military camps in colonial India. It is also on page 68 of Flashman - The Flashman Papers 1839-1842 and definitely refers to the parade grounds.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged - maidan