Writing on an Ethiopian blade

[Terry K]

My friend picked up a nice Ethiopian sabre with this on the blade and we are having trouble translating it. Any help would be appreciated.

[kahnjar1]

Hi Terry,
Can't help with the actual translation, but the language is AMHARIC. Hope this helps. Can you please post a pic of the whole sword.
Stu

[Battara]

I agree with Stu, this is Amharic, and according to forum rules, we need you to post pictures of the whole piece please.

[roanoa]

Waiting to see the whole blade, I will venture to say that this line appears right below the portrait of Menelik II? I have found it in both straight and curved European blades.

[Martin Lubojacky]

There is allegedly written "Mohamed Ali kubanya", which means "Mohamed Ali Co.". This is probably supplier company (I saw it on two different blades, too.). Pls post the whole picture

[roanoa]

Well, I was waiting to see the sword (German?), but since Martin jumped the gun.... Here it is. Martin is correct. It is the name of one of the major importer of weaponry in Ethiopia. Muhammed Ali was based in Harar. He imported several patterns of the Wilkinson blades as well, with his name written in English on the spine of the blade. His name was on occasion spelled wrongly as Muhammedalli (one word), as in this case. There is no "end of word dots" between Muhammed and Ali and so it would read as one word. The second word is the phonetic rendition in Amharic of the word COMPANY.

[Jim McDougall]

Well done Martin!!!
It is extremely difficult to interpret phrases and inscriptions on sword blades without context. I dont believe many who post for translations realize that these inscriptions often are not necessarly verbatim as with translating out of a letter or book. They are often copied by workers who are not speakers of the language being used, or of course perhaps illiterate.

Having the entire sword gives us a better idea of what nationality and periods may be involved so we can better interpret the words in question.

Thank you Martin and Ron for the identification and detail !!!

[kahnjar1]

....but still no pic of the whole item

[Battara]

Terry you have pm

[Terry K]

Gentlemen,
Please forgive me. I cannot get any larger pictures to load. I will try again in next day or so as I don't have the sword here and dumped other ones I took. I also was not receiving notifications from the form in my email but think I fixed that problem.
Terry

[Terry K]

Thanks all that answered! I sent via email the pictures of the sword, overall and close up, to a member who said he would post them .
Thanks for your patience,
Terry

[Battara]

Here are the resized pictures:

[Terry K]

Thanks for resizing them for me

[Battara]

My pleasure 😇

[Martin Lubojacky]

Originally Posted by Martin Lubojacky

There is allegedly written "Mohamed Ali kubanya", which means "Mohamed Ali Co.". This is probably supplier company (I saw it on two different blades, too.). Pls post the whole picture

I learned incidentally, that founder of the Mohamedally Co. was businessman Mohamed Ally Shaikh Sharafaly. I am quoting from the book/brochure "Addis Ababa old Piazza" by Centre Francais des études éthiopiennes:He was an Indian from Gujurat. He had first set foot in Harar in the early 1890 and he made his start through business ventures with Ras Makonnen, the governor of the city/region. The firm he had created with other British-Indian partners reached its apogee in 1930s. That time it was, as it is written in the brochure, the largest "British" trading company in Ethioia.

[Terry K]

Very interesting, thanks