ESTCRH I do understand that it can be difficult to follow everything that is written in a posted comment, and I also understand that the way in which I choose to write my comments can be quite difficult for some people to follow.
Please accept my apologies for any confusion I may have caused you.
To clarify:- please be aware that I have absolutely no intention of attempting to tell anybody with an interest in kards or karuds or anything else for that matter, what they should call these things. In my post #54 you will see that I actually endorse the current situation, where the word "karud" has achieved recognition as collector jargon.
I believe that far from saying that the word "karud" should not be used, Ariel has actually suggested that since it has become a part of collector jargon he can see no reason why it should not continue thus, however, in serious publications that try take account of the cultural context, a slightly more accurate approach that considers word origin should be employed.
In this current discussion, my interest is purely in the way in which language is used.
Ariel's post that opened the discussion was centered on a matter that has concerned me for most of my life, and that is the way in which language develops and is used.
As I also have a + 60 year involvement with edged weaponry, and specifically with the keris, that interest in language has not surprisingly extended into the use of language, both spoken and written, in the field of edged weaponry.
In respect of the two words "kard", and "karud", it is very clear that in the culture of origin only one word was used to refer to both styles of this dagger, however, through a variation in transliteration, when that single word entered other languages, and the original script was Romanised, that single word became two different words.
It appears that one of those two words has now entered the jargon of one group of people:- collectors who are based outside the culture of origin of the dagger in question.
I do understand that many collectors of many different types of things, including weaponry, have no interest in, nor understanding of, the cultures of origin of the things they collect, these collectors focus on the physical object they collect and create their own terms of reference. I have no problem with this: it is what these people do, and it is no business of mine how they pursue their interest.
But other collectors take a different approach to their collecting:- they attempt to obtain a deeper understanding of the thing that they choose to collect and this very often leads to a study of the culture, society, history, language, technology and so forth of the thing that they collect.
So we have the simple collector who focuses on the object of collection, and we have the enquiring collector who extends his focus into the background of the object that he collects.
Neither approach is correct nor incorrect, it simply reflects the nature of the collector.
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