Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
... In shipboard records and inventories of 17th centuries, short heavy bladed swords (with open hilts) were sometimes called machetes, sometimes cutlasses.It pretty much depended on who was using it , when, where and what for. If it was chopping wood or bush it was a machete, when used as a weapon, a sword or whatever.
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Indeed Jim. You take the Portuguese example, in that we call the 'generic' machete a 'CATANA'. Reason why ?
The term Catana was incorporated into the Portuguese language in the 16th century, after the arrival of the Portuguese in Japan. For this reason, in these almost five hundred years, this word has lost its Japanese pronunciation, becoming Portuguese and gaining new meanings in Portuguese, especially in the European, African and Asian variants, designating a variety of objects such as swords, sabers or machetes.
I have phoned this morning my favorite ironmonger, whom i know sells these things as tools. He didn't even know that his Catanas are (also) called machetes !