"Kazakh" versus "Kazakhstani"

Please read the following comments from Washington Post Global and then please read my take on the issue of whether "Kazakhstani" is the preferred usage.

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Nyura:
>Also, I do disagree with the term "Kazakhstani", >and I suggest to the author never to use it since its grammatically and politically incorrect term.

Huh? This is the exact opposite of my understanding and experience. 'Kazakh' is a nationality as in ethnicity; 'Kazakhstani' is a citizenship, regardless of family background/appearance/religion/ethnicity.

I have noticed in the last couple of years, though, that the official government press has begun to use "Kazakh" to mean "citizen of Kazakhstan." I wonder how someone who chose to stay in Pavlodar and carried Kazakhstan-issued passport, whose grandparents came from Russia and whose brother chose Russian "repatriation" feels about being called a "Kazakh?"

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Oldschool Boy:
Actually term Kazakhstani as nationality is nonsense. It would be the same as calling an English person 'Englandi'. Kazakhstan means 'land of Kazakh', as 'stan' means land or place. So using ending 'stan' when describing somebody would be like 'a person from land where he lives'.

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What follows is my response.

Duh, Old School Boy (who maybe should return to school). Perhaps you would like to study some Persian or bother to live in the region before you make declaratory statements about the region, and you'll realize that "stani", lit. Persian for "a person from the land where he lives" as you correctly translated, is used throughout the region, not just in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Persian "i" (the arabic letter ya) at the end of a noun turns a noun into an adjective. For example, Persian-speakers call an American, AmrikaI, as opposed to simply Amrika, which is what they call the United States of America.

In any case, Nyura is completely correct, and I would assume she's either from Kazakhstan or has lived extensively in the region. For example, I would never call a Russian, Tatar or Greek in Tashkent (where there live many mind you), an Uzbek but an Uzbekistani. The equivalent, if you know Russian, is Rossiyanin versus Russkiy. The former connotes the American English word "nationality" (of course, "nationalist" in Russian denotes ethnicity, so bear with me, and don't get too confused), whereas Russkiy denotes an ethnic Russian. See the difference?

It is for this reason, I always use the more encompassing language Rossiyanin and Uzbekistani when refering to people in Russia or Uzbekistan, respectively. To not do so betrays one's ignorance of the historic ethnic complexity of this part of the world. In other words, if you prefer the word American when referring to someone like Arnold Schwarznegger, then logic stipulates you should prefer Kazakhstani when referring to a Russian who lives in Astana.