Karud: the weapon that did not exist:-)

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by David

In the keris world we are constantly inundated with terms for everything from various parts of the blade and elements of the hilts and sheaths to precise dhapur (profile and feature shapes) and pamor patterns. I don't know if i have ever encountered a study so seemingly obsessed with the name game.

David, try Japanese swords, everything has a name and I mean everything!! And then there are the smiths and the schools etc etc.

[kronckew]

the vikings, like the japanese named individual swords of note. the tachi and katana are both curved swords, genus 'samurai swords' subclasses tachi and katana. simlar taxonomy for knives?

i'm also reminded of the made-up word 'falcata' used for spanish kopis-like sword after the mid 19c.

arroz by any other name would small as sweet.

'karud' may not have started off as a proper unique word, but it has gained a life of it's own. english especially is famous for loan words and made-up words, ambiguous words, etc.. unlike france, or quebec, where you may get fined for using the english word for an item that has a french equivalent in french conversation, we do not have that restriction here. i hope.

[Lee]

I think that we collectors of ethnographic artifacts have found it very convenient (and fitting) to adopt what may have been a generic term (i.e. sword, knife, dagger) in the language or dialect of the producing culture as a specific term for an artifact of that culture. On many occasions what was recorded and became accepted has been 'in error' and a brief visit to your dusty copy of Stone's Glossary... should prove that. So, while karud may well remain a useful and specific term for us, it is still worthwhile for us to know the origins of this label.

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by Lee

So, while karud may well remain a useful and specific term for us, it is still worthwhile for us to know the origins of this label.

But we need to know all the nuances, mentioned by D.Miloserdov and Ariel....

[Jim McDougall]

Excellent discussion, and as Lee has noted, many terms and long held 'chestnuts' concerning the spectrum of arms have been firmly in place or 'written in Stone' . However, as with most aspects of history and all its ancillary studies, it is well to learn all we can on origins and development of not just the forms, but their descriptive terms' etymology. Stone himself knew the frailty of his chosen subject matter, and that his work would serve as the benchmark it has become, and encouraged research to continue,

The very nature of these aspects are often of course nuanced, subtle and many have clearly gone unnoticed or unattended at large, which is exactly why these perspectives by Ariel and Dmitry are so well placed.

[ariel]

OK, I am back. Snoopy passed the test with flying colors. She came home and immediately fell asleep. Good girl.

Again, thank you all for your feedback.

The goal of my little research was to trace the origin of the word Karud and to tell a cautionary tale how important it is to read primary sources with attention.

To my great relief and satisfaction nobody questioned the veracity of my analysis. This is already good:-)

All the dissenting opinions were centered around a different question: given that right now we all know that Karud is not a real word, but a mistranscription of Kard, should we still use it in our communications and publications? Several Forumites said that the word Karud is so deeply ingrained in our vocabulary and so convenient to use, that abandoning it will make communications difficult if not impossible.

Well, I think there is no reason to catastophise: multiple authors of important publications manage not to use the word Karud at all, designating these daggers simply as Peshkabz ( with straight blade).

Such is the case with the Polish book "Persian arms and armour" ( Ed. by A.R. Chodynski): see ## 177,179-181, 182. In that book, L. Kobylinski states that some examples of Peshkabz had recurved blades, while other had straight blades (p.65).
"Oriental weapons" by J. Caravana ( #59)
" Splendeur des armes orientales" (#209)
" Arms of the Paladins" by O. Pinchot (#3-107)
"Catalogue de la collection d'armes anciennes" by C Buttin ( ##699, 700)
"Contribution a l'etude...." By P. Holstein, (#141)
"Islamic and Oriental Arms and Armor" by R. Hales ( ## 19-21,24,27,32, 33, 36,79,140,167)
" Mortal Beauty" ( published under the aegis of Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow) #91
" The arts of the Muslim Knight" by B. Mohamed #183
" Arms and Armor from Iran" by M. M. Khorasani: #260. I think nobody would argue with his mastery of Persian language and arms :-)
He also mentions that locally Peshkabz with straight blade was called " shotorkosh", camel killer ( p.237)

As we can see, it is quite easy to communicate without involving the word "Karud".
And, for those who want a short and precise definition that is in complete agreement with the local usage, why not use
" shotorkosh"? :-)

On a serious note, nobody can ban a certain word from conversational practice. How about a compromise: using "Karud" in unofficial discussions ( yielding to the ardent devotees of this word), but avoiding it in any serious academic publication
( accepting the fact that it has nothing to do with local usage and became popular only due to phonetic mishap by the Europeans) ?

Although Shotorkosh still sounds grand! :-)

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

Well, I think there is no reason to catastophise: multiple authors of important publications manage not to use the word Karud at all, designating these daggers simply as Peshkabz.

But they are not pesh-kabz, why didnt the makers of these daggers just create more pesh-kabz if they were making peshkabz???? Just because they are similar in some aspects does not make then the same and just because SOME authors made the mistake of thinking that the karud and pesh-kabz are the same why should we?

Why stop here, lets not call a "choora" a choora, or a "kyber knife" a kyber knife...the original makers of these weapons did not call them by these names.

Take the Indian tegha sword, similar to a tulwar but different enough to have its own name, the list goes on, I could show many such examples.

And while we are at it, since you brought up the "kard" dagger many times, just because the karud and the dagger we now call a "kard" both have only one cutting edge does not make them the same either, examples below.

I trust what my eyes see, not what some authors decides is right, they have been wrong before, on many occasions, same with museums, and auction houses etc. We now have online an abundance of images and can see for ourselves which weapons are basically the same and which are different enough to have a separate name.

Look at the examples of karud and kard daggers below...would anyone mistake them for being the same?

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

" Arms and Armor from Iran" by M. M. Khorasani: #260. I think nobody would argue with his mastery of Persian language and arms :-)
He also mentions that locally Peshkabz with straight blade was called " shotorkosh", camel killer ( p.237)

Ariel, karud daggers come from India, Afghanistan as well as Persia (I do not remember ever seeing an ottoman karud), what is the Indian name and what is the Afghan name, and why should we in the west be confined to what some native many years ago supposedly called a certain weapon if it now has a currently used and accepted name. On the other hand, if a particular weapons proved to be different enough to have an individual name and it ws not already named this would be a different matter entirely.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by kronckew

... i'm also reminded of the made-up word 'falcata' used for spanish kopis-like sword after the mid 19c...

As an empirical i am fond of neologisms but, when Fernando Fulgosio decided to put a name to this thing in 1872, he was hardly building one. Remember there was no record of how this sword was called by its ancestor users, so he got hold of some latin (Roman) script quoting this sword they greatly appreciated, ensis falcâtus and, aware of the curved (sickle) attribution, off he went. Only in the current case he made it simple, only opting for connoting the form of the blade and declining the substantive 'sword', after ensis.
Certainly more complicated is when authors have to refer, in their own (english) phonetic manner, to swords named in all languages, attending to the sound pronounced by their nationals; and eventually omitting the term ethimology, something which would give the reader a more accurate perception. I see how Portuguese established contact with weapons (and all) they encountered during their XVI century travels and chroniclers had to put them in writing; the deal was to turn into portuguese as per the sound they heard. Then once it is written, is perpetuated.
You don't see many (any) weapons in Stone with a Portuguese name; he entitles his work as 'in all countries in all times' but i suspect he didn't contemplate this little corner. The only time so far i found a familiar term (page 3) is result of a gaffe; he joins the term Adaga with Adarga, whereas the first is a dagger and the second is a shield... terms with completely different origins.

Originally Posted by kronckew

... arroz by any other name would small as sweet. ...

You mean arroz doce, sweet rice; your portuguese is improving .

[Oliver Pinchot]

Interesting topic, Ariel. I applaud and support your work here.
And you are correct, I didn't use that term in Arms of the Paladins because it did not exist as a distinct word in its period of use. Like a number of other inaccurate names applied to weapons, it was recorded by early European and American students of arms and armor who were seeking to establish a viable taxonomy, as they heard it in situ.

Fernando and Alan, please forgive me for reiterating what you have already stated with modesty, simplicity, and complete accuracy in this thread... Karud is nothing more than the precise transliteration into Latin letters of the way the Persian word kard (which just means "knife") was and is pronounced in Persian and Dari: with a distinct alveolar trill. Another example would be the word for “leather,” charm, which comes out sounding like charrr-um.)

The problem lies, not with Persian, but with the pronunciation of the letter R in American and British English, French and German; it is virtually impossible to transliterate even an approximately similar sound in these languages without inserting a U between the R and D, simply because none of them roll the R in common speech. Italian, Spanish, Russian (and many others,) however, would likely not have the same problem. Conversely, I could not for a moment imagine how an Iranian scholar would go about transliterating the American pronunciation of the word squirrel into Persian.

[Oriental-Arms]

And what would you name this one: 30 inches long. Shown below next to a more common "Karud" or "kard" or "Peshkabz" 14 inches long.

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by Oriental-Arms

And what would you name this one: 30 inches long. Shown below next to a more common "Karud" or "kard" or "Peshkabz" 14 inches long.

Easy
Khyber Karud
or Khyber kard...
I don't know now I'm confused....

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Kubur

Easy
Khyber Karud
or Khyber kard...
I don't know now I'm confused....

I think khyber-karud is a good description, it is nothing like what collectors call a "kard".

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Oriental-Arms

And what would you name this one: 30 inches long. Shown below next to a more common "Karud" or "kard" or "Peshkabz" 14 inches long.

I would name this one "MINE"!!! A beauty, nicely made, an excellent example of a gigantic karud...certainly not a kard or pesh-kabz. There are from time to time certain weapons that just bend the rules a bit, not quite one thing or another, not everything is a perfect fit. A kyber-karud..humm

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Oliver Pinchot

Interesting topic, Ariel. I applaud and support your work here.
And you are correct, I didn't use that term in Arms of the Paladins because it did not exist as a distinct word in its period of use. Like a number of other inaccurate names applied to weapons, it was recorded by early European and American students of arms and armor who were seeking to establish a viable taxonomy, as they heard it in situ.

Oliver, I have wondered why you would not use "karud" even in your auction descriptions, and I understand your intent but what about other similar words...take "pulowar" "pulwar" "pulouar"...I do not know of any text from the 1800s or early 1900s that uses any of these terms except for Egerton and later Stone, but numerous examples of "Afghan tulwar" exist. Why stop at "karud", why not examine each and every term and delete from our collective memories what is not absolutely historically or linguistically correct???

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by estcrh

Oliver, I have wondered why you would not use "karud" even in your auction descriptions, and I understand your intent but what about other similar words...take "pulowar" "pulwar" "pulouar"...I do not know of any text from the 1800s or early 1900s that uses any of these terms except for Egerton and later Stone, but numerous examples of "Afghan tulwar" exist. Why stop at "karud", why not examine each and every term and delete from our collective memories what is not absolutely historically or linguistically correct???

You are absolutely right! Word "tulwar" is just "a sword". That is way in India there are "khanda tulwar", "sukhela tulwar", "kirach tulwar" and so. Most of the "Indian" terms that we use now are conditional and pseudo-scientific but we have no other.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

You are absolutely right! Word "tulwar" is just "a sword". That is way in India there are "khanda tulwar", "sukhela tulwar", "kirach tulwar" and so. Most of the "Indian" terms that we use now are conditional and pseudo-scientific but we have no other.

And there is also "talwar"??? Which one was first, did the original users call a certain sword "tulwar / talwar", if not then this particular word should not be used in any "academic publications" etc.

If it were not for the Europeans and others that first took the time to collect, name, research and preserve these weapons were would we be today, and they did it without the internet, I think its wrong to try and erase their contribution to the history of these weapons, even if not always linguistically correct, we owe a debt to these people.

[David]

Originally Posted by estcrh

David, try Japanese swords, everything has a name and I mean everything!! And then there are the smiths and the schools etc etc.

LOL! There are probably at least twice as many named parts to a keris blade as there is for a katana. That doesn't even begin to get into the variant dhapurs (blade profiles) and pamor patterns. And then the concepts of tangguh that categorize blades by era geography. Believe me the Japanese sword has nothing on keris when it comes to names and categories. Please, don't get me started.

[ariel]

David,
You are correct: we can compose an endless list of Oriental weapons with the same name and different blades or handles ( Ottoman yataghan is just one example), or with different names and identical construction ( see Van Zonneveld's book of Indonesian weapons).

Most, if not all of it, is due to ethnic or even village traditions.

Early Oriental societies had no regulation patterns. The same blade with different handles could have been a Peshkabz with straight blade ( once again, an example of my magnanimity: a Karud) or an Afridi Choora. Asking why did the knifemakers manufacture Peshkabz with straight blade instead of a recurved one is pointless, akin to asking why some Kris are wavy and some are straight or why Zeibek yataghans have T-like pommel instead of an eared one and integral bolster instead of flimsy hollow brass one.

[motan]

Hi all,
I am a late comer to this discussion because I have been away from computers for several weeks.
Ariel, I join the rest in congratulating you on the fine research work. Besides the facts presented, it is also very plausible, because in many languages short vowls are inserted in a consonant cluster whenever it is uncomfortable to pronounce. The best example I know is spoken Palestinian Arabic where this is done in almost every other word.
However, I also see kronckew's point: why not use karud whether it is invented or not? The naming question has been discussed many times as I understand, but it is a very important for this forum and therefore I will add my own opinion.
No method of naming is without serious flaws. The use of "collectors" terms may not reflect any insight at all and different names for the same items are common, as well as mindless copying of names read somewhere. Local "real" names are good to know, but are often generic and reflect a language of origin more that a type. Many names mean knife, dagger or sword in their language of origin' like saif in Arabic as opposed to shamshir in Persian.

This means that all names are rather loose denotations of certain types and not definitions or tool in a classification system, like in biological species for example. So, any discussion that has names as focus, and these very common in the forum, has really not much value and is far less meaningful than questions like age, origin, use, materials etc. It is not that the discussion of naming is without value, but in contrast to other subjects, there can not be absolute right or wrong because weapon names do not represent real entities.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes, precisely.

[ariel]

Motan, thank you.
That is my sentiment exactly, and I stated it at the very end of my post.

There is no way we can undo a century of popular usage. Informal discussions will still use "Karud" as a stenographic term. There is, however, a measure of relief in finally knowing whence this European mistranscription come. It was called "Kard" in Farsi and "Kord" in Dari- speaking areas. It will be up to professional arms historians whether they continue to use it in academic publications. I am encouraged by a long list of authors describing it as " straight-bladed pesh kabz", which it is in reality.

Again, thanks to everybody for your interest and opinions.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

Motan, thank you.
That is my sentiment exactly, and I stated it at the very end of my post.

There is no way we can undo a century of popular usage. Informal discussions will still use "Karud" as a stenographic term. There is, however, a measure of relief in finally knowing whence this European mistranscription come. It was called "Kard" in Farsi and "Kord" in Dari- speaking areas. It will be up to professional arms historians whether they continue to use it in academic publications. I am encouraged by a long list of authors describing it as " straight-bladed pesh kabz", which it is in reality.

Again, thanks to everybody for your interest and opinions.

Ariel, actually you have been arguing that the term "karud" should not be acknowledged or used at all. You specifically mention using only "pesh kabz" or "kard"...........

Whether currently we should call it Peshkabz, acknowledging the similarity of their physical structure, or Kard, acknowledging its correct pronounciation, is a matter of individual preference, although some uniformity might be useful. But all references to a special weapon called Karud have no linguistic or scientific basis and should be stricken out from professional literature.

So how about other terms, how about "kirach", should it not just be a tulwar since the blade is just straight instead of curved?

[ariel]

[QUOTE=estcrh]Ariel, actually you have been arguing that the term "karud" should not be acknowledged or used at all.

Eric, please be kind enough to actually read the last two words in your citation from my post :" Professional literature"



So how about other terms, how about "kirach", should it not just be a tulwar since the blade is just straight instead of curved?

Kirach or alt. kirich are likely to be ( mis) transcriptions of Turkic word for Kilic ( also just " sword"). That's my hint to you. If you wish to devote time and effort to uncover the real local name for this pattern, you are more than welcome. I shall be the first to applaud you.

[Mercenary]

Kir(a)ch (the same as in the case of kar(a)d).
"Kirch tulwar" (most correctly "kirch tuRwar") - straight sword, literally means "sword for to split (to cleave)".

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by motan

Hi all,
I am a late comer to this discussion because I have been away from computers for several weeks.
Ariel, I join the rest in congratulating you on the fine research work. Besides the facts presented, it is also very plausible, because in many languages short vowls are inserted in a consonant cluster whenever it is uncomfortable to pronounce. The best example I know is spoken Palestinian Arabic where this is done in almost every other word.
However, I also see kronckew's point: why not use karud whether it is invented or not? The naming question has been discussed many times as I understand, but it is a very important for this forum and therefore I will add my own opinion.
No method of naming is without serious flaws. The use of "collectors" terms may not reflect any insight at all and different names for the same items are common, as well as mindless copying of names read somewhere. Local "real" names are good to know, but are often generic and reflect a language of origin more that a type. Many names mean knife, dagger or sword in their language of origin' like saif in Arabic as opposed to shamshir in Persian.

This means that all names are rather loose denotations of certain types and not definitions or tool in a classification system, like in biological species for example. So, any discussion that has names as focus, and these very common in the forum, has really not much value and is far less meaningful than questions like age, origin, use, materials etc. It is not that the discussion of naming is without value, but in contrast to other subjects, there can not be absolute right or wrong because weapon names do not represent real entities.

Motan,
A brilliantly written and concise closing summary to the discussion here, and perfectly describing these circumstances concerning the terminology used to describe various weapons.
You may be late to the discussion, but I cant help thinking of the analogy of 'the cavalry arriving' !!
Thank you!

Jim