Hi Jim,
Some touch ups ?
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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
... If I understand correctly, the very term 'firangi/phirangi' is more literally derived from the meaning 'Portuguese' as described in India ...
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It doesn't literaly mean Portuguese, but it was atributed to them by association. Firangi derives from Frank (Frangue in portuguese); as the Portuguese were coming from the West like the Franks, started being conotated with the same term, by the first time Vasco da Gama touched the Malabar; the term was then generalized in the various Asian languages.
This Frank attribution to western christians started in the Carlos Magno period; before that, the Arabs used to indistinctily call all christians, during the first centuries of Islam culture, Rūmi or Rumes, meanning Romans.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
... I am not with notes or references at the moment, but as I recall the Mahrattas, with whom these patas are believed to have originated, maintained key trade activity with the Portuguese on western coasts of India ...
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Indeed a very useful destination for portuguese sword blades, namely those locally forbidden by Royal law, as too long to be used in their homeland (the so called 'off mark' swords=rapiers); this, i think, would make it plausible that some pata swords are so rather long. But these Mahratta guys also ended up pushing the Portuguese out of the area ( in the XVIII century?), so i have read.
Fernando