Karud: the weapon that did not exist:-)

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by ariel

•
• Fig.2 shows the entry for the English word “knife” and its translated equivalents in Arabic ( marked with an “a”), Persian (“p”) and Hinduwee ( “h”). The Persian word is spelled “kard”: kaf, alef, re, dal (from right to left, of course), with no sound for “u”. But the English vocalization of this word in the Dictionary is listed as “ Karud”, with an additional vowel “u” between re and dal

Ariel, excelent work! You are talented reviewer. My thougts about kard/karud are the same. But in fairness I should add that in arabic script for Hinduwee between two consonants may be different vowels which are not written. Between "re" and "dal" there may be "a" or "u".

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

This is a great in depth study into the whats in a word(letter) syndrome. There is a small pile of weapons across the Ethnographic stratum which have such pickled wording and spelling as to be a veritable knot of muddled and mixed up mess. It is a brave researcher who will take on any of this centuries old train crash.. In his dissertation Ariel shows how to go about unpicking the puzzle. I can think of a dozen or more twisted or misapplied words for various weapons that we know little about..and noted by Jim above . The word Nimcha, for example, is just one baffling arrangement...often caused by Ethnographics experts and authors who transcribe these errors into their work from previous authors.

Perhaps the thread should be better termed ..the.. What's in a Word and any such muddles can be added onto it and see where the thread is after a year or two... it could be an epic.

[kai]

Great work, Ariel!

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

Mercenary:- I believe that you will find the unwritten vowels to which you refer are certainly non-existent in script, but exist only in speech, where they are identified as "allophones". In other words, the vowels do not exist, they only appear to exist because of pronunciation.

An allophone is a variation of the phoneme, and this variation can be inconsistent, varying from geographic location to geographic location, and forming a contributing factor to regional accents, it can even vary from person to person where it can assist in identifying an individual speaker.

This occurs in all languages.

(a phoneme is a unit of sound in a particular language; an allophone is a variation of a spoken phoneme)

My apologies for the pedantry, but my post #9 was the short version of a 20 minute lecture.


Ariel:- I am 100% on your side of this debate, not that I have much interest at all in kards, or karuds, or cards, or careds, or gareds, or pesh-kabz either for that matter, but I do have an interest in language.

What I can see here is something that has existed in my own field of interest (the keris) forever. Whole Ensiklopedias have been written that rotate around this variation in name and pronunciation, and what we have at the present time in the field of keris study is a number of kinds of Collectorise --- or Kulicterize if you prefer --- where the words used by one group of people are unrecognisable to another group of people.

However, in any attempts to achieve conformity in the written representation of a spoken sound we do encounter some insurmountable barriers.

Then there are other difficulties when we come to the term of reference used to name or describe any physical object.

Although I do try to be precise in my own communication, I still sometimes fail in this.

It is reasonable to accept that others can be less than precise also, provided that clarification can be achieved in discussion.

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Mercenary:- I believe that you will find the unwritten vowels to which you refer are certainly non-existent in script, but exist only in speech, where they are identified as "allophones". In other words, the vowels do not exist, they only appear to exist because of pronunciation.

An allophone is a variation of the phoneme, and this variation can be inconsistent, varying from geographic location to geographic location, and forming a contributing factor to regional accents, it can even vary from person to person where it can assist in identifying an individual speaker.

This occurs in all languages.

(a phoneme is a unit of sound in a particular language; an allophone is a variation of a spoken phoneme)

My apologies for the pedantry, but my post #9 was the short version of a 20 minute lecture.

Many thanks for your explanation but I did not mean pronunciation. I told that an one written word may have different meanings which depend on what kind of vowel absents between consonants.