[ariel]

Nihl,

I am sorry you took my comments the way you did. No ill intent was meant. You can classify objects any way you wish, but in fact your definitions of all of them fully coincided with the so-called " Polish system", i.e. primacy of the hilt, even in the case of a saber with Persian blade and Indian handle. That's all. There is nothing personal.

Yes, I know that Elgood also stressed separate descriptions of blade and hit. But in his case it was done with purely Indian objects composed of parts of different ages.

There are many ways how to name "composite" swords: Fiegel used the blade as a determining factor, Polish school uses the hilt, and there is no easy way to sum up every feature to describe swords belonging to a specific area but incorporating features/parts of multiple origin ( the Baluch/Omani saber is an example, likely because of long-standing tight relations of both geographic areas).

It is immaterial what kind of moniker we give to a sword as long as our description of its construction is openly listed. In any case, the contemporaneous local users most likely called them by their own local monikers. Throughout the Arab world all Indian tulwars, Moroccan nimchas and Turkish Kilijes were just " saifs", and virtually identical janbiyas were janbiyas in Yemen, but khanjars in Oman and had multiple different names in Aravia depending on the tribe. What we call Pulwar in our lingo, was just a shamshir for the Afghanis. We are not carrying those swords into battle and our lives do not depend on them. We are just collectors and our only law of the land is how to describe them in the most accurate way comprehensible to our colleagues.

And, as we know, there are at least 9 ways to skin the cat:-)

Peace?