[Nihl]

Jim, I hope my writing here doesn’t come off as overly aggressive, however to be quite honest your reply has made me rather irate.

I once asked a Sikh if there was a way to distinguish a Sikh weapon...he wryly smiled and said, 'if a Sikh used it, then its a Sikh weapon".

This is exactly why I wrote the following in my previous post:

Is it possible a sikh nihang at one point in time wielded a 17th century, thanjavur-style pata in battle? Sure! …but this is all due to trade and is NOT related to where an item was made or “came from”

The idea that the person who wields an item somehow contributes to how it should be classified is patently ridiculous. Are any of the swords in my collection, new or modern, “american swords” just because I, an american, own and wield them from time to time? Of course not! Of course ownership can contribute to the provenance of an item, but provenance alone should not be mistaken with place of creation, which IMO is a more valuable descriptor.

They simply use the dialectic term for 'sword' at hand locally, or within the context of the group they are in.
In India, in northern regions the tulwar means sword, any type.
In Persia, shamshir has similar use, but typically means curved.

This is a fundamentally unhelpful, ineffectual notion that I can’t help but notice is only ever brought up, without exception, when someone on this forum is unwilling to change the terminology that they use regarding weapons. It has not and will never be a valid argument, nor will it ever contribute anything to the study of arms. Saying “who cares, words are silly, let's just get drunk!” is a statement that is equally meaningless and silly yet functionally interchangeable with the previous one. Yes, basic “sword words” exist, but believe it or not there are not only more specific words that exist to differentiate items, but also things such as adjectives, prefixes, and suffixes that can be attached to words to additionally specify their meanings.

No progress will ever be made in our field if people keep holding on to this idea, and I really wish people would stop saying it. Even linguistically it’s rather daft, as plenty of languages have numerous words distinguishing knives from daggers, different types of swords and other arms from one another, etc. etc. (including both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages as relevant to this thread here). Words have meaning, and that meaning can change or even be outright replaced over time. It is only natural that in a field that at least attempts to be scientific some of our words will change over time too. Again, I only ever see this hand-waving of semantics whenever someone brings up the “revolutionary” concept of definitions changing, and as far as I can see it comes from fear and ignorance, and the complete opposite of willingness to learn.

Looking at a sword with a stereotypical tulwar-style hilt but a long, straight, fullered blade? Either describe it in full like I just did, or say it’s a tulwar with a firangi-style blade! However just calling it a “firangi” not only exclusively describes the blade, but also might be describing the blade wrongly if it turns out the blade isn’t from europe. Theoretically, in the future, if hilt origins are ever finally discerned, you could make the naming even more accurate by, for example, saying the sword has a “udaipuri-style hilt and a firangi-style blade”! Sure, it’s easier to just use the generic “sword word” and call it a tulwar, but I’d like to think that the longer, previously given description functions as the “scientific name” of sorts for the item.

At the end of the day, sure, to the average collector or dealer that just wants to put a name on their items, there will always be generic terms that exist to describe them. However for anyone that is actually curious and interested in the study of these things, I think more mileage will be had trying to be as descriptive as possible.

Once again, this isn’t intended as a direct attack at Jim, despite what it may or may not seem like, but rather an open letter of sorts that happened to be spurred by Jim’s response.