Turkish Pala "Sword" and Its Derivatives
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3965029 |
|---|---|
| Authors | George C Miles, George Miles (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1930 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Pages | 254 |
| Publication date | 1930-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Oriental Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0279 • E-ISSN: 2169-2289 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/593079 |
| OpenAlex | W2335158897 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
IN THREE of the standard English dictionaries 1 there appears word balas, which seems never actually to have existed in English or in any other language, and which therefore ought, for the sake of lexicographical accuracy, to be killed . In order to kill the word properly it has been necessary to determine the manner in which it came into the English dictionaries and also, incidentally, into an Arabic dictionary, and to follow the etymological history of foreign word to which the mistake is ultimately to be traced. word balas is defined variously as long dagger intended for thrusting rather than cutting, used by the Turks , Turkish yataghan , a short sabre or dagger-like weapon etc. It appears to have been taken from Captain Sir Richard F. Burton's writings,2 and defined and etymologized apparently on his authority alone. The author uses the word in describing the purchases that travellers from Medina to Stamboul used to make with certain money allowed them as privileged personages on their arrival in the latter city. He says, This gift is sometimes squandered in pleasure, more often profitably invested either in merchandise or in articles of home-use, presents of dress and jewellery for the women, handsome arms, especially pistols and Balas (yataghans), silk tassels, amber pipe-pieces, slippers, and embroidered purses. 3 A foot-note on Balas reads, The Turkish ' yataghan '. It is long dagger, intended for thrusting rather than cutting, and has curve, which, methinks, has been widely copied by the Duke of Orleans, in the bayonet of the Chasseurs de Vincennes. Burton, therefore, gave the lexicographers word balas supposedly of Turkish origin, sometime after 1855 (when the story of his Pilgrimage was first pub
Ancient history · Linguistics · SWORD · Turkish · World Wide Web · Computer Science · History · Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistics and Cultural Studies · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2020 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |