Afghan place name spelling variations

[Liz]

Working with period sources on the 1st Afghan war, I've come across many different spellings for the same places and ethnic groups eg. Afghan, Affghan, Afghaun, Avghaun. This makes searching difficult (to put it mildly). Has anybody come across or put together a list of these spelling variations?

[scotty]

I stumbled on this forum while trying to identify the uniform worn by Shah Sujahs Troop which apparently was raised by William Anderson, there is a painting by a Captain Cooper who served with SST but it shows no detail, just blue jackets and white trousers, the head gear is just a blob!
William Anderson is my Great great grandfather, he and his wife Amelia were among the captives of Akbar Khan and I have an account of there adventures written by her. She names many of the forts and villages that they were held in and I have been trying to locate them on today's maps, with practically no success, any map of a decent scale seems to be in Russian which is not much use! I can give you a list of the place names if it would help
Regards
Scotty

[acanthus]

Hi,

Recently researching and writing in part on the subject of the 1st Afghan War and a person who was involved, I was trying to find the place names on a map where the various actions took place, also note the route taken by the various British columns; I must admit I found this task very difficult and in some cases could not locate place names at all.

Maybe as a joint venture, we could all communicate and form a complete list of place names and the various spellings, in particular for the purpose of research and writing.

For the purpose of the written word, it is very confusing for the reader, when two or three different spellings of a word appear in reference material, in particular, when in some cases the common English spelling, or that adopted for a battle honour might be different to the local or historical spelling.

Gordon