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Originally Posted by ariel
Nobody answers...
I guess Erlikhan might be the source of info: a call to Askeri Muze or something like that and the dilemma will be solved.
My wild guess , there are none!
Why? Yataghans came to wide use in the 17th century and their use petered out in the first half of the 19th century. Sure, there were used even later, but by that time Turkey firmly put herself on the path of Westernization.
When in use, yataghans were kind of "private weapons". Ottomans in their imperial sunset were not very much into any systematization of anything (that was why Westernization was needed!), their army was in disarray and the Yenicheri corps (the main user of yataghans) was already destroyed and disbanded. Who needed to write manuals for the rebelling Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians?
Ah, the Ottomans... They had so many great ideas how to run a society ( free medical care, inclusion of minorities, religious tolerance, free care for the elderly and the poor), but somehow the whole enterprise deteriorated into brutalities and paranoia of the Sultans. I guess the absolute power, indeed, corrupts absolutely....
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As far as I know, there are many arching and horsemanship manuals written in arabic and ottoman turkish in the libraries. So my guess is why not for yatagans and other type of weapons? It is true that oral culture was very dominant among the common people and janissaries. Yet there were also literate people among the people as well as among the janissaries. And we should not forget literacy rate was always higher among non-muslims, who constituted considerable portion of the empire's population. It seems strange to me that nobody tought to write down a short manual for yatagans. And I think this has nothing to do with being systematic, scientific etc. Ottomans culture, like any other culture, had no shortage of manuals, or books on every aspect of life. Of course, as long as there is no evidence ariel's guess is closer to the truth than my guess
