Bazaars

A bazaar is a permanently enclosed marketplace or street where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term originates from the Persian word bāzār, from Middle Persian wāzār, from Old Persian vāčar, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *wahā-čarana.Souq is another word used in the Middle East for an open-air marketplace or commercial quarter. The term bazaar is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers, and craftsmen" who work in that area. Although the current meaning of the word is believed to have originated in native Zoroastrian Persia, its use has spread and now has been accepted into the vernacular in countries around the world. The rise of large bazaars and stock trading centers in the Muslim World allowed the creation of new capitals and eventually new empires. New and wealthy cities such as Isfahan, Golconda, Samarkand, Cairo, Baghdad, and Timbuktu were founded along trade routes and bazaars. Street markets are the European and North American equivalents.

The origin of the word Bazaar comes from Persian bāzār, and is thougt to derive from the Pahlavi word baha-char (بهاچار) meaning "the place of prices". The term, bazaar, spread from Persia into Arabia and ultimately throughout the Middle East. Many languages have names to describe the concept of a bazaar, including Arabic and Urdu: بازار‎, Kurdish language has the same word bazaar meaning a marketplace. Albanian, Bosnian and Turkish: pazar, Assamese: বজাৰ (bôzar), Bengali: বাজার ,Odia: ବଜାର, Bulgarian and Macedonian: пазар, Cypriot Greek: pantopoula,Greek: παζάρι (pazari), Hindi: बाज़ार, Hungarian: vásár (term originates from Persian influence around the 7th-8th century and means a regular market, but special occasion markets also exist, such as Karácsonyi Vásár or "Christmas Market", and bazár or Oriental-style market or shop, the term stemming from Turkish influence around the 16th-17th century), Indonesian and Malay: pasar, Armenian: բազար, Georgian: ბაზარი, Polish: bazar, Russian: базар, Ukrainian: базар and Uzbek: bozor,Uyghur: بازار‎, ULY: bazar, USY: базар.

...
Wikipedia