Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

ariel · 17th September 2017, 03:48 PM

All true, but with a twist:-)
Kindjal is a Russian name for a Caucasian dagger Khanjali, which in turn is a local phonetic variant of Persian Khandjar.

We were influenced by the Russian terminology to imagine kindjals as straight double-edged daggers strictly related to the Caucasus ( or their local variants in the Ottoman areal), but paradoxically in Russia " kindjal" is ANY short-bladed weapon of military/fighting variety. Russian language does not have a special general definition for this class of weapons, as opposed to , say, English "dagger".

Thus, in Russian colloquium all the above daggers are "kindjals", just as their off-hand mentioned " kindjal koummya", " kindjal bichhwa" etc.

To make things even more confused, Russian regulation military daggers with curved blades are often called " bebut", but I have no knowledge of the origin of this word. They are often defined as " kindjal bebut".

Thus, both Marius and Osobist are correct, but from different perspectives.

The last one is probably Shibriya made from an old rasp.

17th September 2017, 03:48 PM	#12
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	All true, but with a twist:-) Kindjal is a Russian name for a Caucasian dagger Khanjali, which in turn is a local phonetic variant of Persian Khandjar. We were influenced by the Russian terminology to imagine kindjals as straight double-edged daggers strictly related to the Caucasus ( or their local variants in the Ottoman areal), but paradoxically in Russia " kindjal" is ANY short-bladed weapon of military/fighting variety. Russian language does not have a special general definition for this class of weapons, as opposed to , say, English "dagger". Thus, in Russian colloquium all the above daggers are "kindjals", just as their off-hand mentioned " kindjal koummya", " kindjal bichhwa" etc. To make things even more confused, Russian regulation military daggers with curved blades are often called " bebut", but I have no knowledge of the origin of this word. They are often defined as " kindjal bebut". Thus, both Marius and Osobist are correct, but from different perspectives. The last one is probably Shibriya made from an old rasp. Last edited by ariel; 17th September 2017 at 09:35 PM.