WHEN DOES A LONG JAMBIYA BECOME A SWORD?

[Devadatta]

I think it's impossible to measure from american/european point of view

Here we have kinjals from Caucasus, some of them can be really HUGE, still they're counted as "daggers" not as "swords"

[Devadatta]

Some time ago I was thinking on a similar question: what a flyssa is according to well-known european definitions? Mainly long pieces can be obviously considered as "swords", but there are also plenty of short-ones of the same forms, they can be called "daggers". But I think that finally a flyssa is a flyssa, and not anything else. So at the same time a jambiya is a jambiya.

[kronckew]

yes, that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

what we call them is by and large a western conceit born from a romano-germanic need to measure, classify, correlate and codify everything.

reminds me of the term 'falcata' coined by a victorian englishman to designate the spanish form of sword he wished to differentiate from the greek kopis, in spite of the fact that spain had been settled by eastern mediterranean peoples who had been very familiar with the kopis and it's variants. if you spoke to a native in spain who was from their period, or even later, falcata would be a unknown foreign word.

the term the people who used these weapons used is more appropriate, but in likelyhood, like dha, just means 'knife' in whatever size they are. it is us westerners and particularly us collectors that need to further break them down and group them into sword length dha, knife length dha, short-sword length dha, etc. where the locals would likely just call them a long dha or a short dha. even flyssa is more a term for the tribe than the weapon, more properly a(n) (e)flyssan knife/sword/weapon.

semantics can be so confusing. so can transliteration of local non european languages and terms into our roman based alphabets.

it all boils down to using terms that communicate meaning between all of us from all the unique backgrounds we come from here. a hard task at best.

[Rick]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

Some time ago I was thinking on a similar question: what a flyssa is according to well-known european definitions? Mainly long pieces can be obviously considered as "swords", but there are also plenty of short-ones of the same forms, they can be called "daggers". But I think that finally a flyssa is a flyssa, and not anything else. So at the same time a jambiya is a jambiya.

I wonder if the term/name 'Flyssa' is more a definition of a certain groups' weapons than a definitive term as regards their individual dimensions ...

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Devadatta

I think it's impossible to measure from american/european point of view

Here we have kinjals from Caucasus, some of them can be really HUGE, still they're counted as "daggers" not as "swords"

If not mistaken, it seems that many of these large 'kindjhal' type weapons are termed 'qama', as cited in both western references as well as the catalog from an Arabian exhibition in Riyadh I have noted (1991). While the term qama is used with daggers, it seems that the term applies equally to the larger sword size (Ive seen them up to over 30" blades) as well as the daggers.

It seems also that a single edged curved bladed example is termed 'bebut'.

Best regards,
Jim