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Old 21st March 2020, 09:43 PM   #13
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
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Yes Lee, I would be inclined to give it the same name.

HOWEVER

naming is always only applicable to a particular time, place, situation. If we decide to use a particular name for one or another object, I feel it is perhaps best to identify the reference for the name we use.

We think we know what a keris/kris/cris/creese is, but the word first appeared in Old Javanese, along with a few others that could well have at that time been the name for what we call a "keris" now. We simply do not know what the thing that we call a "keris" now was called in its place of origin in the 6th to 14th centuries.

In Old Javanese it seems possible that some weapons were given a name in a particular situation that represented the mode of use, so if the same weapon was used to thrust, rather than to slash, or cut, then the name changed.

The photo of the Neka piece that I posted is categorised as a "keris" and with the form of a pedang (dhapur). The same applies to the ligan, which is also named as "keris pedang".

In order to understand naming conventions in S. E. Asian Maritime societies --- and perhaps some other societies --- we need to understand not only the languages involved, but the way in which the people who used these languages thought.
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