Beautifully written and outstanding information Marc!!!
Joe, fantastic example!
Now here lies the true origins of the Scottish basket hilt, and interestingly there are examples with curved blades, usually termed 'turcael' referring to the curved Turkish blades often seen by Highlander mercenaries in Eastern Europe. Naturally there remains considerable debate on the basket hilt origin issue, but the highly developed hilts on the guards of the so called 'Sinclair' sabres from Northern Europe seem the most plausible ancestor in my opinion.
From what I understand , the term dusagge (dusack) although originally applied to very pedestrian peasant swords, and training swords.As fencing with these developed, the term began to be applied to various heavy, short sabres and as noted cutlasses.
It would appear that terminology applied locally to certain weapons can often be expanded colloquially to a wider range of similar type weapons as the terms diffuse via trade, transliteration and travellers. Because of this it can often become maddening to try to categorize a particular weapon to a specific term
as the same weapon may be referred to by very different terms in various places where found. I hope I said that right
!
Best regards,
Jim